It was on a hot thundery July afternoon that Sir Hugh entered Redmond Hall, weary and heated and dusty, and thoroughly ashamed of himself.

There are some men who hate to be reminded of their own shortcomings—who are too proud and impatient to endure self-humiliation, and who would rather go through fire and water than own themselves in the wrong. Sir Hugh was one of these. Despite his moral weakness, he was a Redmond all over, and had a spice of the arrogance that had belonged to them in the old feudal days, when they had ruled their vassals most tyrannically. And especially did he hate to be reminded by word or deed that his conduct had not been faultless; his conscience made him uncomfortable enough, for he was really kind-hearted in spite of his selfishness; so it did not improve matters when Mrs. Heron met him in the hall, and, quite forgetting her usually stately manners, suddenly burst out, while her tearful eyes gave emphasis to her words:

“Oh, Sir Hugh, I am grateful and thankful to see you again, for we thought my lady would have died in her trouble, for, bless her dear heart, she fretted herself cruelly when you left her, and more’s the pity!”

The housekeeper had meant no reproach to her master, but Sir Hugh’s uneasy conscience took alarm.

“Thank you, Mrs. Heron,” he said, with icy politeness, “I am deeply indebted to you for reminding me of my shortcomings. Ellerton, be good enough to tell Lady Redmond’s nurse that I am here, and that I wish to see my wife at once;” and he passed on in a very bad humor indeed, leaving Mrs. Heron thoroughly crest-fallen by her master’s unexpected sarcasm.

Ellerton was an old servant, and he ventured to remonstrate before carrying out this order.

“Will you not get rid of a little of the dust of your journey, Sir Hugh, and have some refreshment before you go up to my lady?”

“You have my orders, Ellerton,” returned his master, curtly; and he ascended the staircase with the frown still heavy on his face.

He did not like to feel so ashamed of himself, and this was his mode of showing it.

Fay lay on a couch in her bedroom looking very lovely, in her white tea-gown trimmed with lace, with her brown hair hanging in long plaits, and a little rose-leaf color tinting her cheeks. She was listening with a beating heart for the well-known footsteps; as they sounded at last in the corridor and she heard his voice speaking to Ellerton, she sat up, flushed and trembling, and under the soft shawl something that lay hidden stirred uneasily as she moved.

“You must not excite yourself, my lady,” observed the nurse, anxiously; but she might as well have spoken to the wind, for Fay seemed to have forgotten her presence.

“Oh, Hugh, my darling husband!” she exclaimed, as the door opened; and the tender rose flush deepened in her cheeks as she stretched out her hand to him with her old smile.

Hugh stooped over the couch and kissed her, and then sat down with rather a dissatisfied expression on his face; he thought they had made a fuss to frighten him, and bring him home—she did not look so very ill after all.

“I could not come to meet you, love,” she said, with a little clasp of his hand, and she kissed it in her old way and laid it against her face.“My dear Fay,” he remonstrated, and bit his lip. “Nurse, you can trust your patient in my care. I will ring for you in a little while.” Then, as the door closed behind her, he said in a vexed tone, “Fay, why will you be so childish? you know that I object to demonstration before the servants, and have told you so, and yet you never seem to remember; do try to be a little more dignified, my dear, and wait until we are alone.” And this to her who had come back to him through “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” bringing his boy with her!

Fay became very white, and drew her hand away. “You do not seem to remember how very ill I have been,” she faltered. And their the baby’s blind wandering touches over her breast soothed her.

Hugh grew a little remorseful.

“My dear, I assure you I have not forgotten it: I was very grieved to hear it, and to know that you should have been alone in your trouble; but was it my fault, Fay? Did you keep your promise to me not to fret yourself ill when I Was gone?”

“I kept my promise,” she replied, quietly; “the fretting and the mischief were done before. We will not talk about my illness; it is too bad even to think of it. Have you nothing else to say to me, Hugh? do you not wish to see our boy?”

Hugh started, conscience-stricken—he had forgotten his child altogether; and then he laughed off his confusion.

“Our boy! what an important Wee Wifie. Yes, show him to me by all means. Do you mean you have got him under that shawl?”

“Yes; is he not good?” returned Fay, proudly; she had forgotten Hugh’s coldness now, as she drew back the flimsy covering and showed him the tiny fair face within her arms. “There, is he not a beauty? Nurse says she has never seen a finer baby boy for his size. He is small now, but he will grow; he has such long feet and hands that, she assures me, he will be a tall man. Mrs. Heron says he is a thorough Redmond. Look at his hair like floss silk, only finer; and he has your forehead, dear, and your eyes. Oh, he will be just like his father, the darling!”

“Will he?” returned Hugh, dubiously, and he touched him rather awkwardly—he had never noticed a baby closely before, and he was not much impressed with his son’s appearance; there was such a redness, he thought, and no features to be called features, and he had such a ridiculous button of a mouth. “Do you really call him a fine baby, Fay?”

“Fine! I should think so; the smallness does not matter a bit. You will be a big man some time, my beauty, for you are the very image of your father.”

“Heaven forbid!” ejaculated Hugh; he was quite appalled at the notion of any likeness between this absurd specimen of humanity and himself; but happily the little mother did not hear him, for she was adjusting the long robe to her liking.

“There, you must take him, Hugh; I want to see him once more in your arms—my two treasures together;” and she held the baby to him.

Hugh did not see how the weak arms trembled under their load, as he retreated a few steps in most genuine alarm.

“I take him! My dear, I never held a baby in my life; I should be afraid of dropping him; no, let him stop with his mother. Women understand these sort of things. There, now, I thought so, he is going to cry;” and Hugh’s discomfited look was not lost on Fay, as the baby’s shrill voice spoke well for his strength of lungs.

“Oh, hush, hush,” she said, nearly crying herself, and rocking the baby to and fro feebly. “You spoke so loudly, Hugh, you frightened him; he never cries so when we are alone.”

“You will be alone directly if you do not send him away,” was her husband’s impatient answer; “it is not pleasant for a man to be deafened when he is tired after a long journey. Why, I do believe you are going to cry too, Fay; what is the good of a nurse if you exhaust yourself like this?” And he pulled the bell-rope angrily.

“Oh, please don’t send my baby away,” she implored, in quite a piteous voice; “he is always with me now, and so good and quiet, only you startled him so.”

“Nonsense,” he returned, decidedly; “your illness has made you fanciful; surely I must know best what is good for my wife. Nurse, why do you allow Lady Redmond to wear herself out with a crying child? it can not be right in her weak state.”

Fay gave up her baby without a word; she was too gentle to remonstrate, but if he could have read her thoughts. “He does not care for his child at all,” she was saying bitterly to herself; and then she was very quiet, and shielded her face with one hand. Sir Hugh was rather uncomfortable; he knew he had been out of temper, and that he was disappointing Fay, but he never guessed the stab that he had inflicted when he had refused to take their boy in his arms.

“Well, Fay,” he said, in rather a deprecating manner, “I meant to have had a little talk with you, now that noisy fellow is gone; but you seem sleepy, dear; shall I leave you to rest now, and come up again after dinner?”

Fay uncovered her eyes and looked at him rather oddly, he thought, but she made no answer. Hugh rose and looked at his watch, and repeated his question.

“No,” she said, very slowly; “do not trouble to come up again, Hugh. I can not talk to you to-night; I shall be better quiet.”

“There, I told you so,” he cried, triumphantly. “I knew that little rascal had tired you.”

“My baby never tires me,” she answered, wearily, and closed her eyes. Oh, if she could only close them forever! But then she remembered how terrible death had seemed to her in her illness—a pit of infinite pain.

Hugh looked at her a little puzzled; his Wee Wifie was very much altered, he thought; and then he kissed her two or three times with some affection, and went to his dressing-room.

But when she heard him go down-stairs she rang for the nurse to bring back her baby directly. The woman did not like her excited look, or the fierce way she almost snatched him to her bosom.

“You had much better try and get a little sleep, my lady,” she said, kindly; but Fay only shook her head. It was not bed-time yet, she said, but she would like to be quiet with her baby for a little. And when nurse had gone to have a chat with Janet, she tottered from the couch, and knelt down beside it, and laid her helpless arms about her baby’s neck, and wetted the white robe with her tears.

“It is all over, baby,” she moaned; “he does not care for you or for me either—he only wants Margaret; but you must love your mother, baby, and grow up and comfort her, for she has no one but you to love her in the whole wide world.”

Lady Redmond had a serious relapse after this, and it was two or three weeks before she was carried to the couch again.

******

Hugh had not learned his lesson yet. Neither his wife’s illness nor his own had taught him wisdom; he was as restless and unreasonable as ever.

He grew very impatient over Fay’s prolonged weakness, which he insisted was due in a great measure to her own fault. If she had not excited herself so much on the night of his return, she would never have had that relapse. It was a very tiresome affair altogether; for his own health was not thoroughly re-established, and a London physician had recommended him a few months’ travel; it was just what he wanted, and now his trip to Cairo and the Pyramids must be indefinitely postponed.

He rather obstinately chose to believe that there was a want of will in the matter, and that Fay could throw off her weakness if she liked. Still he was very kind to her in his uncertain way—perhaps because the doctors said he must humor her, or she would fade away from them yet. So he told her that she would never get strong while she lay moping herself to death in that little painted bird-cage, as he called the blue room; And when she answered listlessly that she could not walk—which he was at first slow to believe—he used to carry her down to one of the sunniest rooms in the old Hall—into either the morning-room or library—and place her comfortably on her couch with her work and book before he started out for his ride.

It was a new thing to have those strong arms performing gentle offices for her. Fay used to thank him gratefully with one of her meek, beautiful looks, but she seldom said anything—his kindness had come too late to the poor child, who felt that her heart was slowly breaking with its hopeless love. For who would be content with the mirage when they are thirsting for the pure water? Or who would be satisfied with the meted grain and the measured ounce when they have given their all in all?

Those looks used to haunt Hugh as he rode through the Singleton lanes; he used to puzzle over them in an odd ruminative fashion.He remembered once that he had been in at the death of a doe—where, or in what country he could not remember; but she had been overtaken with her fawn, and one of the huntsmen had dispatched her with his knife.

Hugh had stood by and shuddered at the dumb look of anguish in the wild deer-eyes, as with a sobbing breath the poor creature breathed its last, its helpless fawn licking its red wounds. Hugh had not been able to forget that look for a long time; and now it recurred to his memory, and he could not tell why Fay’s eyes reminded him so much of the dying doe’s—it was an absurd morbid idea. And then he touched his black mare a little smartly, and tried to efface the recollection by a rousing gallop. But, do what he would, he could not get it out of his mind that his Wee Wifie was sadly altered; she was not the same Fay whose little tripping feet had raced Nero and Pierre along the galleries with that ringing laugh. This was a tired Fay who rarely spoke and never laughed—who seemed to care for nothing but her baby.

Hugh used to tell her so sometimes, with an inexplicable feeling of jealousy that rather surprised him; but Fay did not understand him.

“What does it matter for whom I care?” she would say to herself. “I must love my own baby.” And then she would think bitterly that Hugh seemed to like her better now that she had ceased to vex him with her childish demonstrations. “I am getting very dignified,” she thought, “and very quiet; and I think this pleases him. Do old people feel like this, I wonder, when all their life is ended, and they have such feeble, aching limbs? Ah, no; I do not believe they suffer at all. But now I seem as though I can never rest for my longing that Hugh may love me, and tell me so before I die.” And so she would press on in her sad plaintive little way.

No wonder Sir Hugh marveled at her, so silent of tongue, so grave of look—such an altered Wee Wifie; but all the conclusion at which he arrived was that the baby had been too much for her, and that, when the summer heat was over, she would grow strong again. And Fay never contradicted him.

And by and by, when the days grew a little cooler, Fay began to creep about the garden a little, and call herself well. Hugh drove her out once or twice in her pony-carriage; but she saw he did not like it, and begged him to let her go alone—such reluctant courtesies gave her no pleasure. But presently Erle came for a brief visit, and was her ready escort, and after that she really began to mend.