Lavender, and she was rocking a child in a cradle."
CHAPTER XXVI.
REDINTEGRATIO AMORIS.
That same night Sheila dreamed a strange dream, and it seemed to her that an angel of God came to her and stood before her, and looked at her with his shining face and his sad eyes. And he said, "Are you a woman, and yet slow to forgive? Are you a mother, and have you no love for the father of your child?" It seemed to her that she could not answer. She fell on her knees before him, and covered her face with her hands and wept. And when she raised her eyes again the angel was gone, and in his place Ingram was there, stretching out his hand to her and bidding her rise and be comforted. Yet he, too, spoke in the same reproachful tones, and said, "What would become of us all, Sheila, if none of our actions were to be condoned by time and repentance? What would become of us if we could not say, at some particular point of our lives, to the bygone time that we had left it, with all its errors and blunders and follies, behind us, and would, with the help of God, start clear on a new sort of life? What would it be if there were no forgetfulness for any of us—no kindly veil to come down and shut out the memory of what we have done—if the staring record were to be kept for ever before our eyes? And you are a woman, Sheila: it should be easy for you to forgive and to encourage, and to hope for better things of the man you love. Has he not suffered enough? Have you no word for him?"
The sound of her sobbing in the night time brought her father to the door. He tapped at the door, and said, "What is the matter, Sheila?"
She awoke with a slight cry, and he went into the room and found her in a strangely troubled state, her hands out stretched to him, her eyes wet and wild: "Papa, I have been very cruel. I am not fit to live any more. There is no woman in the world would have done what I have done."
"Sheila," he said, "you hef been dreaming again about all that folly and nonsense. Lie down, like a good lass. You will wake the boy if you do not lie down and go to sleep; and to-morrow we will pay a visit to the yacht that hass come in, and you will ask the gentlemen to look at the Maighdean-mhara."
"Papa," she said, "to-morrow I want you to take me to Jura."
"To Jura, Sheila? You cannot go to Jura. You cannot leave the baby with Mairi, Sheila."
"I will take him with me," she said.
"Oh, it is not possible at all, Sheila. But I will go to Jura—oh yes, I will go to Jura. Indeed, I was thinking last night that I would go to Jura."
"Oh no, you must not go," she cried. "You would speak harshly—and he is very proud—and we should never see each other again. Papa, I know you will do this for me—you will let me go."
"It is foolish of you, Sheila," her father said, "to think that I do not know how to arrange such a thing without making a quarrel of it. But you will see all about it in the morning. Just now you will lie down, like a good lass, and go to sleep. So good-night, Sheila, and do not think of it any more till the morning."
She thought of it all through the night, however. She thought of her sailing away down through the cold wintry seas to search that lonely coast. Would the gray dawn break with snow, or would the kindly heavens lend her some fair sunlight as she set forth on her lonely quest? And all the night through she accused herself of being hard of heart and blamed herself, indeed, for all that had happened in the bygone time. Just as the day was coming in she fell asleep and she dreamed that she went to the angel whom she had seen before, and knelt down at his feet and repeated in some vague way the promises she had made on her marriage morning. With her head bent down she said that she would live and die a true wife if only another chance were given her. The angel answered nothing, but he smiled with his sad eyes and put his hand for a moment on her head, and then disap-
