said Mrs. Kavanagh, "you must not persuade Mr. Ingram
against his will. He may have other duties--other friends to see,
perhaps."

"Who proposed it, mamma?" said the daughter calmly.

"I did, as a mere joke. But of course, if Mr. Ingram thinks of going
to the Tyrol, we should be most pleased to see him there."

"Oh, I have no other friends whom I am bound to see," Ingram said with
some hesitation, "and I should like to go to the Tyrol. But--the fact
is--I am afraid--"

"May I interrupt you?" said Mrs. Lorraine. "You do not like to leave
London so long as your friend Sheila is in trouble. Is not that the
case? And yet she has her father to look after her. And it is clear
you cannot do much for her when you do not even know where Mr.
Lavender is. On the whole, I think you should consider yourself a
little bit now, and not get cheated out of your holidays for the
year."

"Very well," Ingram said, "I shall be able to tell you to-morrow."

To be so phlegmatic and matter-of-fact a person, Mr. Ingram was sorely
disturbed on going home that evening, nor did he sleep much during the
night. For the more that he speculated on all the possibilities that
might arise from his meeting those people in the Tyrol, the more
pertinaciously did this refrain follow these excursive fancies: "If
I go to the Tyrol I shall fall in love with that girl, and ask her to
marry me. And if I do so, what position should I hold, with regard to
her, as a penniless man with a rich wife?"

He did not look at the question in such light as the opinion of the
world might throw on it. The difficulty was what she herself might
afterward come to think of their mutual relations. True it was, that
no one could be more gentle and submissive to him than she appeared
to be. In matters of opinion and discussion he already ruled with an
autocratic authority which he fully perceived himself, and exercised,
too, with some sort of notion that it was good for this clear-headed
young woman to have to submit to control. But of what avail would this
moral authority be as against the consciousness she would have that it
was her fortune that was supplying both with the means of living?

He went down to his office in the morning with no plans formed. The
forenoon passed, and he had decided on nothing. At mid-day he suddenly
be-thought him that it would be very pleasant if Sheila would go and
see Mrs. Lorraine; and forthwith he did that which would have driven
Frank Lave