ear
of negotiations, or of any prospect of your going back--and yet you
won't go home to your father."

"I cannot do either," Sheila said.

"Do you mean to live in those lodgings always?"

"How can I tell?" said the girl piteously. "I only wish to be away, and
I cannot go back to my papa, with all this story to tell him."

"Well, I didn't want to distress you," said the old woman. "You know
your own affairs best. I think you are mad. If you would calmly reason
with yourself, and show to yourself that, in a hundred years, or less
than that, it won't matter whether you gratified your pride or no, you
would see that the wisest thing you can do now is to take an easy and
comfortable course. You are in an excited and nervous state at present,
for example; and that is destroying so much of the vital portion of your
frame. If you go into these lodgings and live like a rat in a hole, you
will have nothing to do but nurse these sorrows of yours, and find them
grow bigger and bigger while you grow more and more wretched. All that
is mere pride and sentiment and folly. On the other hand, look at this.
Your husband is sorry you are away from him: you may take that for
granted. You say he was merely thoughtless: now he has got something to
make him think, and would without doubt come and beg your pardon if you
gave him a chance. I write to him, he comes down here, you kiss and make
good friends again, and to-morrow morning you are comfortable and happy
again."

"To-morrow morning!" said Sheila sadly. "Do you know how we should be
situated to-morrow morning? The story of my going away would become
known to his friends: he would go among them as though he had suffered
some disgrace, and I the cause of it. And though he is a man, and would
soon be careless of that, how could I go with him amongst his friends,
and feel that I had shamed him? It would be worse than ever between us;
and I have no wish to begin again what ended this morning--none at all,
Mrs. Lavender."

"And do you mean to say that you intend to live permanently apart from
your husband?"

"I do not know," said Sheila in a despairing tone. "I cannot tell you.
What I feel is that, with all this trouble, it is better that our life
as it was in that house should come to an end."

Then she rose. There was a tired look about the face, as if she were too
weary to care whether this old woman would help her or no. Mrs. Lavender
regarded her for a moment, wondering, perha