Do you think I
would make a bad husband to the woman I married?"

"I believe nothing of the sort. I believe you would make a very good
husband if you were to marry a woman whom you knew something about,
and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your
knowledge of her. I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie
as yet. If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six
months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected."

"Very well, then," said Lavender with an air of triumph, "you can't
deny this: you think so much of her that the real woman I would
discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don't
expect I shall be disappointed?"

"If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed--not through
her fault, but your own. Why, a more preposterous notion never entered
into a man's head! She knows nothing of your friends or your ways of
life: you know nothing of hers. She would be miserable in London, even
if you could persuade her father to go with her, which is the most
unlikely thing in the world. Do give up this foolish idea, like a good
fellow; and do it before Sheila is dragged into a flirtation that may
have the most serious consequences to her."

Lavender would not promise, but all that afternoon various resolutions
and emotions were struggling within him for mastery, insomuch that
Duncan could not understand the blundering way in which he whipped
the pools. Mackenzie, Sheila and Ingram had gone off to pay a visit
to an old crone who lived in a neighboring island, and in whom Ingram
had been much interested a few years before; so that Lavender had
an opportunity of practicing the art of salmon-fishing without
interruptions. But all the skill he had shown in the morning seemed to
have deserted him; and at last he gave the rod to Duncan, and, sitting
down on a top-coat flung on the wet heather, indolently watched the
gillie's operations.

Should he at once fly from temptation and return to London? Would
it not be heroic to leave this old man in possession of his only
daughter? Sheila would never know of the sacrifice, but what of that?
It might be for her happiness that he should go.

But when a young man is in love, or fancies himself in love, with a
young girl, it is hard for him to persuade himself that anybody else
can make her as happy as he might. Who could be so tender to her, so
watchful over her, as himself? He does not reflect th