great harm done--none at all," said her father
lightly, and perhaps beginning to think that after all something was
to be said for Lavender's side of the question. "And you will not
suppose, Sheila, that I am coming to make any trouble by quarreling
with any one. There are some men--oh yes, there are ferry many--that
would have no judgment at such a time, and they would think only about
their daughter, and hef no regard for any one else, and they would
only make effery one angrier than before. But you will tell me,
Sheila, where Mr. Lavender is."

"I do not know," she said. "And I am anxious, papa, you should not go
to see him. I have asked you to promise that to please me."

He hesitated. There were not many things he could refuse his daughter,
but he was not sure he ought to yield to her in this. For were not
these two a couple of foolish young things, who wanted an experienced
and cool and shrewd person to come with a little dexterous management
and arrange their affairs for them?

"I do not think I have half explained the difference between us," said
Sheila in the same low voice. "It is no passing quarrel, to be mended
up and forgotten: it is nothing like that. You must leave it alone,
papa."

"That is foolishness, Sheila," said the old man with a little
impatience. "You are making big things out of ferry little, and you
will only bring trouble to yourself. How do you know but that he
wishes to hef all this misunderstanding removed, and hef you go back
to him?"

"I know that he wishes that," she said calmly.

"And you speak as if you wass in great trouble here, and yet you will
not go back?" he said in great surprise.

"Yes, that is so," she said. "There is no use in my going back to the
same sort of life: it was not happiness for either of us, and to me it
was misery. If I am to blame for it, that is only a misfortune."

"But if you will not go back to him, Sheila," her father said, "at
least you will go back with me to Borva."

"I cannot do that, either," said the girl with the same quiet yet
decisive manner.

Mr. Mackenzie rose with an impatient gesture and walked to the window.
He did not know what to say. He was very well aware that when Sheila
had resolved upon anything, she had thought it well over beforehand,
and was not likely to change her mind. And yet the notion of his
daughter living in lodgings in a strange town--her only companion a
young girl who had never been in the place before--was