m and
shrunk back. If he had been less intent on his own plans he would have
been amazed and pained by this action on the part of his daughter,
who used to run to him, on great occasions and small, whenever she
saw him; but the girl had for the last few days been so habitually
schooling herself into the notion that she was keeping a secret from
him--she had become so deeply conscious of the concealment intended
in that brief letter--that she instinctively shrank from him when he
suddenly appeared. It was but for a moment.

Mr. Mackenzie came forward with a fine assumption of carelessness
and shook hands with Sheila and with Mairi, and said, "How do you do,
Mairi? And are you ferry well, Sheila? And you will not expect me this
morning; but when a man will not pay you what he wass owing, it wass
no good letting it go on in that way; and I hef come to London--".

He shook the rain-drops from his cap, and was a little embarrassed.

"Yes, I hef come to London to have the account settled up; for it wass
no good letting him go on for effer and effer. Ay, and how are you,
Sheila?"

He looked about the room: he would not look at her. She stood there
unable to speak, and with her face grown wild and pale.

"Ay, it wass raining hard all the last night, and there wass a good
deal of water came into the carriage; and it is a ferry hard bed you
will make of a third-class carriage. Ay, it wass so. And this is a new
house you will hef, Sheila?"

She had been coming nearer to him, with her face down and the
speechless lips trembling. And then suddenly, with a strange sob, she
threw herself into his arms and hid her head, and burst into a wild
fit of crying.

"Sheila," he said, "what ails you? What iss all the matter?"

Mairi had covertly got out of the room.

"Oh, papa, I have left him," the girl cried.

"Ay," said her father quite cheerfully--"oh ay, I thought there was
some little thing wrong when your letter wass come to us the other
day. But it is no use making a great deal of trouble about it, Sheila,
for it is easy to have all those things put right again--oh yes,
ferry easy. And you have left your own home, Sheila? And where is Mr.
Lavender?"

"Oh, papa," she cried, "you must not try to see him. You must promise
not to go to see him. I should have told you everything when I wrote,
but I thought you would come up and blame it all on him and I think it
is I who am to blame."

"But I do not want to blame any one," sa