under which Lavender was supposed to labor.

"He has a splendid head," said Ingram. "Did you know that he is called
the King of Borva up there?"

"I have heard of him being called the King of Thule," said Mrs.
Lorraine, turning with a smile to Sheila, "and of his daughter being
styled a princess. Do you know the ballad of the King of Thule in
_Faust_, Mrs. Lavender?'"

"In the opera?--yes," said Sheila.

"Will you sing it for us after dinner?"

"If you like."

The promise was fulfilled, in a fashion. The notion that Mr. Ingram
was about to go away up to Lewis, to the people who knew her and to
her father's house, with no possible answer to the questions which
would certainly be showered upon him as to why she had not come also,
troubled Sheila deeply. The ladies went into the drawing-room, and
Mrs. Lorraine got out the song. Sheila sat down to the piano, thinking
far more of that small stone house at Borva than of the King of
Thule's castle overlooking the sea; and yet somehow the first lines of
the song, though she knew them well enough, sent a pang to her
heart as she glanced at them. She touched the first notes of the
accompaniment, and she looked at the words again:

Over the sea, in Thule of old,
Reigned a king who was true-hearted,
Who, in remembrance of one departed--

A mist came over her eyes. Was she the one who had departed, leaving
the old king in his desolate house by the sea, where he could only
think of her as he sat in his solitary chamber, with the night-winds
howling round the shore outside? When her birthday had come round
she knew that he must have silently drank to her, though not out of a
beaker of gold. And now, when mere friends and acquaintances were free
to speed away to the North, and get a welcome from the folks in Borva,
and listen to the Atlantic waves dashing lightly in among the rocks,
her hope of getting thither had almost died out. Among such people as
landed on Stornoway quay from the big Clansman her father would seek
one face, and seek it in vain. And Duncan and Scarlett, and even John
the Piper--all the well-remembered folks who lived far away across the
Minch--they would ask why Miss Sheila was never coming back.

Mrs. Lorraine had been standing aside from the piano. Noticing that
Sheila had played the introduction to the song twice over in an
undetermined manner, she came forward a step or two and pretended to
be looking at the music. Tears were running down She