keeping me waiting."

Then she called for a servant, who was sent for a cab; and by the time
the vehicle appeared Mairi was ready to get into it, and her trunk was
put on the top. Then, clad in the rough blue dress that she used to
wear in Borva, and with no appearance of haste or fear in the calm and
death-like face, Sheila came out from her husband's house and found
herself alone in the world. There were two little girls, the daughters
of a neighbor, passing by at the time: she patted them on the head and
bade them good-morning. Could she recollect, five minutes thereafter,
having seen them? There was a strange and distant look in her eyes.

She got into the cab and sat down by Mairi, and then took the girl's
hand. "I am sorry to take you away, Mairi," she said; but she was
apparently not thinking of Mairi, nor of the house she was leaving,
nor yet of the vehicle in which she was so strangely placed. Was she
thinking of a certain wild and wet day in the far Hebrides, when a
young bride stood on the decks of a great vessel and saw the home of
her childhood and the friends of her youth fade back into the desolate
waste of the sea? Perhaps there may have been some unconscious
influence in this picture to direct her movements at this moment, for
of definite resolves she had none. When Mairi told her that the cabman
wanted to know whither he was to drive, she merely answered, "Oh yes,
Mairi, we will go to the station;" and Mairi added, addressing the
man, "It was the Euston Station." Then they drove away.

"Are you going home?" said the young girl, looking up with a strange
foreboding and sinking of the heart to the pale face and distant
eyes--"Are you going home, Miss Sheila?"