Gwladys was also present, and was busily engaged in directing some portion of the work which she took under her own particular surveillance, and part of which she was able to do in her own home, much against her husband's wishes, for he would have liked to see her spend her days, her time, and his money in pleasure only; but the time hung heavily on her hands, and she felt herself perforce obliged to seek for work outside her own home, and playfully insisted upon taking upon her a portion of the work to which she had been accustomed from childhood.
"Wilt come up to-night, Nell," she said, as she left the shed one day, "and bring up those reef points and the new flag for me to hem? There's a bag of sucan[[1]] and half a cheese you can have."
"Tank'ee, tank'ee, Mishtress fâch," said Nell, standing up to make a series of bob curtseys; "there's good you are to me, and I will bring you a bunch of 'moon rocket.' I gathered it when the moon was full in a cleft of the rocks at Traeth-y-daran. 'Tis splendid for bringing the colour back to your blood. Will you try it, mem?"
"Yes," said Gwladys, "I will try it to please thee, Nell. From Traeth-y-daran, didst say? Bring it to me; but I am quite well," and she left the shed, Hugh looking after her with a wistful sadness, for it was now very evident that the girl, who a year ago might have stood for a picture of "Hebe," had now lost much of the full ripe form, as well as the glow of health, which had once made her so peculiarly attractive. She was still very fair and lovely, perhaps more so than before, but in a different way. Her dark brown eyes had deep shadows beneath them, and her lips a curve of sadness. What was the cause of this sudden failing of health? Hugh tried in vain to discover, and he was fast resigning himself to the belief that her delicacy was due to that much-dreaded disease, consumption, which was very prevalent in that neighbourhood. Whether from the continual intermarriage of the villagers on the coast, or from some other cause, this cruel disease is very rife amongst the young people of both sexes; and Hugh looked every day, with nervous fears, for signs of the dreaded enemy.
Gwladys laughed at his fears, however, and continued to declare she was quite well.
Mari Vone, who was her most intimate friend and companion, was as much puzzled as Hugh at first. With the quick intuition of a loving heart, she had soon discovered that Hugh and Gwladys' marriage had not brought to either of them the complete happiness which she had expected would follow their union. She spent some part of every day in Gwladys' home, either helping in the household duties or sitting with her at work, engaged in those long chats which seem to fill up any blank there may be in the lives of women, as smoking does with men. She never stayed later than four or five o'clock, and Hugh was wont to reproach her playfully with always leaving before he came home. Though Mari pleasantly laughed away his reproaches, it was true that she could not look on unmoved while the man who yet reigned supreme in her heart caressed and dallied with his young wife. It was true that she was not yet strong enough to feel no bitterness of spirit when she saw the tender affection which Hugh lavished upon Gwladys, and which seemed to be received by her without the reciprocal delight which Mari herself would have felt. Her pure and unselfish love made her desire his happiness before any earthly good, and it wounded her true heart to see that he missed something in his wife, without plainly realising that he did so, or, at all events, without confessing it even to himself.
It was during one of these long chats, when the two friends sat knitting at the cottage door, that the suspicion first dawned upon her which was afterwards to develop into such a miserable certainty. They had sat silent for some time, both heads bent over their clicking knitting needles, when Mari looked up and spoke.
"Wel, wyrl Lallo's new pig seems to be as noisy as the last year's. You can always hear them abusing each other."
"Yes," said Gwladys, laughing; "I think, between the baby and the pig, Siencyn will be glad to go to sea again."
"'Tis a crying baby, indeed," said Mari; "a frail little thing. I'm afraid it will not live."