Fay was not very well the next day, and Sir Hugh insisted on sending for Dr. Martin; Fay was much surprised when the kind old doctor lectured her quite seriously on her imprudence; and put a veto on any more skating and riding for the present. The sprained ankle was a trifle, but all the same he told her grimly she must consider herself a prisoner for a few days—a very hard sentence to Fay, whose nimble little feet had never been still for long, and who had certainly never known a day’s illness in her healthy young life; but, with her usual docility, she promised obedience. Sir Hugh was unusually busy just then. Some vexatious lawsuit in which the Redmonds had been involved for a year or two, and in which both Sir Wilfred and his son had taken great interest, was just drawing to a conclusion, and he was obliged to go up to town for a few hours almost daily, and but for Erle’s society, Fay would have been sadly moped; but with his usual good-humor, Erle gave up his out-of-door pursuits to devote himself to her amusement.

He was always contriving odd surprises for her; the mystified servants often heard Fay’s merry laugh ringing like a peal of silvery bells, and thought that there could be very little the matter with their young mistress; sometimes these sounds were supplemented by others that were still more extraordinary.

One day Erle brought up the stable puppies—three black-faced, snub-nosed, roundabout creatures in which Fay had taken a kindly interest since the hour of their birth—and to her intense delight deposited them on her lap, where they tumbled and rolled over each other with their paws in the air, protesting in puppy fashion against this invasion of their liberties.

Another time there was an extraordinary clucking to be heard outside the door, and the next moment Erle entered with a hen under each arm, and very red in the face from suppressed laughter.

“I thought you would be pining after your favorites, Speckles and Tufty,” he observed, with a chuckle; “so, as you could not visit the poultry-yard, my Fairy Queen, I have brought Dame Partlet and her sister to visit you,” and he deposited the much-injured fowls on the rug.

It was unfortunate that Sir Hugh should have come in that moment; his disgusted look as he opened the door nearly sent Fay into hysterics; Speckles was clucking wildly under the sofa—Tufty taking excited flights across the room.

“How can you be so ridiculous,” observed Sir Hugh, with a frown; “Fay, do you think Dr. Martin would approve of all this excitement;” but even he was obliged to check a smile at Erle’s agonizing attempts to catch Speckles.

Fay began to wonder what he would do next; Erle gravely assured her that if he could have induced Bonnie Bess to walk upstairs, which she would not do under any pretense, preferring to waltz on her hind-legs in the hall, he would have regaled her with a sight of her favorite; but after the baby from the lodge, a half-frozen hedgehog, some white rats kept by the stable-boy, and old Tom, the veteran cat with half a tail, had all been decoyed into the boudoir, Erle found himself at the end of his resources.

But he used to go down to the vicarage with a very long face, and the result was that every afternoon, there were fresh, girlish faces gathering round Fay’s couch. Dora Spooner would come with one of her sisters or a Romney girl to help Erle amuse the invalid.

There were delightful little tea-parties every afternoon. Janet, who waited on them, thought her mistress never seemed happier. Fay was treated as though she were a little queen; Dora and Agnes Romney vied with each other in attentions; perhaps Erle’s pleasant face and bright voice were powerful inducements in their way; the girls never seemed to think it a trouble to plow their way through the snowy lanes—they came in with glowing faces to narrate their little experiences.

“Yes, it is very uncomfortable walking; but we could not leave you alone, Lady Redmond. Mr. Huntingdon begged us so hard to come,” Dora would say, and the hazel eyes looked at Erle rather mischievously.

Erle was up to his old tricks again. Fay used to take him to task when their visitors had gone.

“You are too fond of young ladies,” she would say to him, severely. “You will make poor Dora think you are in love with her if you pay her so much attention. Those are your London manners, I suppose, when you are with that young person who has the go in her, or with the other one with the pretty smile, of whom you say so little and think so much.”

“Come, now; I do call that hard on a fellow,” returned Erle, in an injured voice.

“You see I take an interest in you, my poor boy,” continued Fay, with quite a matronly air. “I can not allow you to make yourself so captivating to our country girls. What will Dora think if you go down to the vicarage every morning with that plausible little story that no one believes? I am not dull one bit. I am laughing from morning to night, and Mrs. Heron comes up and scolds me. No; Dora will believe that you admire hazel eyes and long lashes. Poor girl, she knows nothing about that young person with the go in her.”

“Oh, do shut up, Fay,” interrupted Erle quite crossly at this. “Why do you always speak of Miss Selby in this absurd fashion? She is worth a dozen Dora Spooners. Why, the girls who were here this afternoon could not hold a candle to her.”

“Oh, indeed!” was Fay’s response to this, as she lay and looked at Erle, with aggravating calmness.

“Why do you want to make out that girls are such duffers?” he went on in a still more ruffled tone, as though her shrewdness had hit very near the truth; “they have too much sense to think a fellow is in love with them because he has a little fun with them; you married women are so censorious,” he finished, walking off in a huff; but the next moment he came back with a droll look on his face.

“Mrs. Spooner wants me to dine there to-morrow; there is to be a little dance; some of the Gowers are coming. Do you think you can spare me, Fay?”

“Oh, go away; you are all alike!” returned Fay, impatiently; “you have only to blame yourself if Mr. Spooner asks your intentions. I do not think Mr. Huntingdon would approve of Dora one bit; she is not so very handsome, she will not hold a candle to you know whom, and she has no money—a vicar with a large family can not afford a dowry to his daughter.” But, as Erle had very rudely marched out of the room, she finished this little bit of worldly wisdom to empty walls.

Erle had been over to the Grange. He had mooted the question one evening when he and Sir Hugh were keeping Fay company; and, to Fay’s great surprise, her husband had made no objection. “I suppose it would be right for you to call and thank them, Erle,” he had said, as though he were prepared for the suggestion; “and perhaps, Fay”—hesitating slightly—“it might be as well for you to write a little note and say something civil after all their attention.” And Fay thanked him for the permission with a radiant face, as though he had done her a personal favor, and the next day wrote the prettiest and most grateful little note, which Erle promised to deliver.

“You will be sure to keep the girls until I get back,” had been his parting request when he came to fetch the dogs.

It was not exactly the sort of afternoon that Erle would have selected for a country walk—a thaw had set in, and the lanes were perfect quagmires of half-melted snow and slash, in which the dogs paddled and splashed their way with a perfect indifference to the state of their glossy coats; any amount of slush being better than enforced inaction.

“I shall have to leave you outside, my fine fellows,” observed Erle, as Nero took a header into a heap of dirty-looking snow, in which he rolled delightedly. “I am afraid I shall hardly be presentable myself out these are the joys of country life, I suppose.”

But he was not at all sorry when he found himself at the Grange, and a pleasant-looking, gray-haired woman had ushered him into a room where Mr. Ferrers and his sister were sitting. It was a far larger room than the one where Fay had had her foot doctored that day, and was evidently Mr. Ferrers’s peculiar sanctum—two of the walls were lined from the floor to the ceiling with well-filled book-shelves, an ordinary writing-table occupied the center of the room; instead of the bay-window, a glass door afforded egress to the garden, and side windows on either side of the fire-place commanded a view of the yew-tree walk; a Scotch deerhound was stretched on the rug in front of the blazing fire, and two pet canaries were fluttering about a stand of ferns.

Miss Ferrers had evidently been writing from her brother’s dictation, for several letters were lying ready for the post. As Erle had crossed the hall he had distinctly heard the sound of her clear, musical voice, as she read aloud: but the book was already laid aside, and she had risen to welcome him.

Erle fancied she looked paler than on the previous occasion, and he wondered what Mr. Ferrers would have said if he had seen those dark lines under her eyes; perhaps she never told him when she was tired—women liked to be martyrs sometimes.He was received very cordially; and Miss Ferrers seemed rather touched at the contents of her little note.

“It was good of Lady Redmond to write,” she said to Erle with a smile; “but she makes far too much of my little services.”

“Oh, that is just her way,” returned Erle, candidly. “She is such a grateful little soul. Most people take all one’s attentions as a matter of course; but Fay is not like that.”

“Oh, no, she is very sweet,” observed Margaret, thoughtfully; somehow she had yearned to see that pretty, bright face again.

“She is the finest little creature that ever lived,” returned Erle, with boyish enthusiasm; “it is wonderful how little she thinks about herself. And she is about the prettiest girl one can see anywhere; and she is clever, too, though you would not believe it to hear her; for she always wants to make out that she can do nothing.”

Mr. Ferrers smiled at this. “Lady Redmond did seem bent on proving that fact to us.”

“Of course, did I not tell you so? but don’t you believe her, Mr. Ferrers. Why, even Hugh, critical as he is, owns Fay is the best horsewoman in these parts. I should like to see her and Bonnie Bess in the Row; she would make a sensation there. And it is quite a treat to see her drive her ponies; she knows how to handle a horse’s mouth. Why, those tiny hands of hers could hold in a couple of thorough-breds. Oh, she is a good sort; the Spooner girls swear by her.”

Miss Ferrers looked kindly at the young man; she liked to hear him vaunting his cousin’s excellencies after this unsophisticated fashion. She had taken rather a fancy to this boyish, outspoken young fellow; and her brother shared this liking. She was about to put a question to him, when he suddenly started up with an exclamation, and the next moment he had crossed the room and was standing before a picture, with a very puzzled expression on his face. It was the portrait of a girl, and evidently painted by a good artist. Of course it was she, Erle told himself after another quick look; in spite of the smiling mouth, he could not mistake her. There was the small, finely shaped head, set so beautifully on the long neck; the coils of black hair; the dark, dreamy eyes, which always seemed to hold a shadow in them.

“I beg your pardon; but I had no idea you knew Miss Davenport,” he said at last, looking at Margaret as he spoke. But it was Mr. Ferrers who answered.

“Davenport? We know no one of that name, do we, Margaret? What does Mr. Huntingdon mean? Is it some picture?”

“Yes, dear, Crystal’s picture. Mr. Huntingdon seems to recognize it.”

“Crystal? why, that is her name, too. I have heard Miss Trafford use it a dozen times. As though there could be two faces like that”—pointing to the canvas. “She looks younger, yes, and happier, in the picture; but then, of course, one has never seen her smiling like that. But it is Miss Davenport—ay, and to the life too.”

“You must be mistaken,” observed Mr. Ferrers in a voice so agitated that Erle regarded him with astonishment. He was strangely pale, and the hand that was grasping the chair back was visibly trembling. “That is the portrait of our young cousin, Crystal Ferrers.”

“Yes, our adopted child,” added Miss Ferrers, “who left our home nearly eighteen months ago.”

Erle looked more puzzled than ever. “I can not understand it,” he said, in a most perplexed voice. “If she be your cousin, Crystal Ferrers, why does she call herself Crystal Davenport? There can be no question of identity; that is the face of the Miss Davenport I know—the young governess who lives with the Traffords; that is the very ring she wears, too”—with another quick glance at the hand that was holding a sheaf of white lilies. But here Mr. Ferrers interrupted him.

“Will you describe that ring, Mr. Huntingdon?”

“Willingly—it is of Indian workmanship, I fancy, and has a curiously wrought gold setting, with an emerald very deeply sunk into the center.”

“Yes, yes; it must be she,” murmured Raby, and then for the moment he seemed able to say no more; only Margaret watched him, with tears in her eyes.

Erle’s interest and curiosity were strongly excited. There must be some strange mystery at the bottom of this he thought. He had always been sure that Miss Davenport had some history. She was wonderfully handsome; but with all his predilection for pretty faces he had never quite taken to her; he had regarded her with involuntary distrust.

He looked at Mr. Ferrers as he stood evidently absorbed in thought. What a grand-looking man he was, he said to himself, if he would only hold his head up, and push back the mass of dull brown hair that lay so heavily on his forehead.

There was something sad in that spectacle of sightless strength; and to those who first saw him, Raby Ferrers always seemed like some patient giant oppressed and bowed down, both physically and mentally, but grand in a certain sublime resignation that endured because he was too proud to complain.

“It must be so,” he observed at last. “Margaret, I see light at last. Mr. Huntingdon”—turning to his guest—“I have been very rude, very uncourteous, but your words have given me a shock; you have touched accidentally on a deep trouble. Now, will you be good and kind enough to sit down and tell me all you can about Miss Davenport, as you call her.”

“Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Ferrers.” And, with very few interruptions from either the brother or sister, Erle gave a full and graphic description of Crystal’s present home and surroundings—all the more willingly that his listeners seemed to hang breathlessly on his words.

He described eloquently that shabby room over Mrs. Watkins’s, that was yet so pleasant and home-like; the mother with her worn, beautiful face, who moved like a duchess about her poor rooms, and was only the head teacher in a girls’ school. He dismissed the subject of the gentle, fair-haired Fern in a few forcible words; but he spoke of little Florence, and then of Percy, and of the curious way in which all their lives were involved.

Only once Mr. Ferrers stopped him. “And Miss Davenport teaches, you say?”

“Yes, both she and Miss Trafford have morning engagements. I think Miss Martingale, where Mrs. Trafford is, has recommended both the young ladies. There are not many gentle people living there; the Elysian Fields and Beulah Place are not exactly aristocratic neighborhoods. But Miss Trafford goes to the vicarage; there are young children there; and by good luck the senior curate, Mr. Norton, wanted some help with his two little boys. Miss Davenport is a Latin scholar, and they took her on the Traffords’ recommendation.”

“And only her mornings are occupied? Excuse these seemingly trifling questions, Mr. Huntingdon”—with a sad smile—“but you are speaking of one who is very dear to us both.”

“I will tell you all I know,” returned Erle, in his kind-hearted way; “but I am only a visitor at Mrs. Trafford’s. I think, at least I am sure, that they do a good deal of needle-work in their spare time—embroidery for shops; they are very poor, you see. There is always work about; sometimes they are making their gowns. They are never ashamed of anything they do, they are such thorough gentlewomen. I do not think you could find a prouder woman than Mrs. Trafford anywhere, and yet she is frank, and generous to a fault.”

“They must be charming people,” observed Margaret, thoughtfully. “Crystal has told us all this in her letters, Raby. Mr. Huntingdon’s account most fully indorses hers.”

“Yes,” he returned, quietly, “she is in good hands; our prayers have been answered, Maggie. But now dear, if we have heard all that Mr. Huntingdon can tell us about our poor child, will you leave me with him a little, for I want to take him into our confidence; when he knows all, he may be willing to help us.” And Margaret rose without a word; but her beautiful eyes rested on Erle a moment, wistfully, as though to bid him to be patient.

And then, as the twilight crept over the room; while the girls were laughing and chatting round Fay’s couch, and wondering—Dora especially—what could have happened to detain Mr. Huntingdon so late; and while the blazing pine knots threw a ruddy glow over Raby’s pale face, Erle sat listening to one of the saddest stories he had ever heard.

And when it was finished they had a long talk together, and Erle told Raby about Percy’s hopeless passion, and of the impatience and loathing with which Crystal seemed to turn from her handsome young lover.

“He makes his way with other girls, but not with her,” went on Erle; “and yet he is clever and fascinating, and will be rich, too, some day. It seems strange, does it not. Mr. Ferrers?”“Not to me,” returned Raby, quietly; but there was a smile on his face as he spoke. “Crystal will never care for your friend, Mr. Huntingdon; it is no use, his persecuting her with his attentions.”

“If I could only get Percy to believe it; but he seems absolutely crazy on that point. Miss Davenport—Miss Ferrers, I mean—is not quite the style I admire; but she is superbly handsome, one must own that.”

“Yes,” replied Raby, with a sigh; “I always said her face would do for Vashti’s. She has Italian blood in her veins; her mother was a Florentine. Oh, here comes Margaret,” as the door opened and she reappeared. “Maggie, what do you think? Mr. Huntingdon has invited me to Belgrave House.”

“My uncle is very hospitable, Miss Ferrers,” observed Erle, with a smile at her surprise; “Percy and I can always ask our friends. He is old, and has his own rooms; so we never interfere with him. Mr. Ferrers would find himself very comfortable with us, and I would take great care of him.”

“You are very good”—but rather doubtfully. “You will not go to London without me, Raby?”

“I think it will be better, Maggie. Mr. Huntingdon has promised to take me over to Beulah Place; we shall go there one evening. Oh, yes, it is all arranged. Please God, I shall bring her home with me,” and there was a strange, beautiful smile on his face as he spoke.