pear in a rift of those passing
clouds, but it was not the moonlight that shed this pale and wan
grayness down the lonely streets. It is just at this moment, when the
dawn of the new day begins to tell, that a great city seems at its
deadest; and in the profound silence and amid the strange
transformations of the cold and growing light a man is thrown in upon
himself, and holds communion with himself, as though he and his own
thoughts were all that was left in the world. Not a word passed between
the two men, and Lavender, keenly sensitive to all such impressions, and
now and again shivering slightly, either from cold or nervous
excitement, walked blindly along the deserted streets, seeing far other
things than the tall houses and the drooping trees and the growing light
of the sky.

It seemed to him at this moment that he was looking at Sheila's funeral.
There was a great stillness in that small house at Borvabost. There was
a boat--Sheila's own boat--down at the shore there, and there were two
or three figures in black in it. The day was gray and rainy; the sea
washed along the melancholy shores; the far hills were hidden in mist.
And now he saw some people come out of the house into the rain, and the
bronzed and bearded men had oars with them, and on the crossed oars
there was a coffin placed. They went down the hillside. They put the
coffin in the stern of the boat, and in absolute silence, except for the
wailing of the women, they pulled away down the dreary Loch Roag till
they came to the island where the burial-ground is. They carried the
coffin up to that small enclosure, with its rank grass growing green and
the rain falling on the rude stones and memorials. How often had he
leaned on that low stone wall, and read the strange inscriptions in
various tongues over the graves of mariners from distant countries who
had met with their death on this rocky coast! Had not Sheila herself
pointed out to him, with a sad air, how many of these memorials bore the
words "who was drowned;" and that, too, was the burden of the
rudely-spelt legends beginning "Hier rutt in Gott," or "Her under hviler
stovit," and sometimes ending with the pathetic "Wunderschen ist unsre
Hoffnung." The fishermen brought the coffin to the newly-made grave, the
women standing back a bit, old Scarlett MacDonald stroking Mairi's hair
and bidding the girl control her frantic grief, though the old woman
herself could hardly speak for her tears and her