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 that her parents
have had the experience of years in taking care of her, while he would
be a mere novice at the business. The pleasure with which he regards
the prospect of being constantly with her he transfers to her, and
she seems to demand it of him as a duty that he should confer upon her
this new happiness.

Lavender met Sheila in the evening, and he was yet undecided.
Sometimes he fancied, when their eyes met unexpectedly, that there
was something wistful as well as friendly in her look: was she too
dreaming of the vague possibilities of the future? This was strange,
too, that after each of those little chance reveries she seemed to be