he watch."

Here again the young man received a quiet, scrutinizing glance; and it
began to dawn upon him, to his infinite astonishment, that Mackenzie
half suspected him of being an emissary of the International. In the
case of any other man he would have laughed and paid no heed, but how
could he permit Sheila's father to regard him with any such suspicion?

"Don't you think, sir," he said boldly, "that those Internationalists
are a lot of incorrigible idiots?"

As if a shrewd observer of men and motives were to be deceived by such a
protest! Mackenzie regarded him with increased suspicion, although he
endeavored to conceal the fact that he was watching the young man from
time to time. Lavender saw all the favor he had won during the day
disappearing, and moodily wondered when he should have a chance of
explanation.

After dinner they went outside and sat down on a bench in the garden,
and the men lit their cigars. It was a cool and pleasant evening. The
sun had gone down in red fire behind the Atlantic, and there was still
left a rich glow of crimson in the west, while overhead, in the pale
yellow of the sky, some filmy clouds of rose-color lay motionless. How
calm was the sea out there, and the whiter stretch of water coming into
Loch Roag! The cool air of the twilight was scented with sweetbrier. The
wash of the ripples along the coast could be heard in the stillness. It
was a time for lovers to sit by the sea, careless of the future or the
past.

But why would this old man keep prating of his political prophecies?
Lavender asked of himself. Sheila had spoken scarcely a word all the
evening; and of what interest could it be to her to listen to theories
of revolution and the dangers besetting our hot-headed youth? She merely
stood by the side of her father, with her hand on his shoulder. He
noticed, however, that she paid particular attention whenever Ingram
spoke; and he wondered whether she perceived that Ingram was partly
humoring the old man, at the same time that he was pleasing himself with
a series of monologues, interrupted only by his cigar.

"That is true enough, Mr. Mackenzie," Ingram would say, lying back with
his two hands clasped round his knee, as usual: "you've got to be
careful of the opinions that are spread abroad, even in Borva, where not
much danger is to be expected. But I don't suppose our young men are
more destructive in their notions than young men always have been. You
know every yo