“I went over to Beulah Place the first evening just to reconnoiter, and was much disgusted to hear that Miss Davenport—Miss Ferrers, I mean, only I stick to the old name from habit—was nursing one of her pupils with the measles. The little rascal—it is a boy—had refused to be nursed by any one else; and there she is in the curate’s house kept in durance vile; and, to make matters worse, there is some talk of her going out of town with them.
“I wrote off to the Grange at once, and Miss Ferrers answered me. Her brother would defer his visit for the present, she said, until Miss Davenport was back in her old quarters. He was much disappointed, of course, at this delay; but he was satisfied to know that she was in good hands, and he was used to disappointments. I did feel so sorry for the poor old fellow when I read that.” And the rest of the letter was filled with lively descriptions of a ball where he had met Miss Selby, and danced with her half the night.
Fay shook her head over this part of Erle’s letter. He was an incorrigible flirt, she was afraid; but she missed him very much. The old Hall seemed very quiet without Erle’s springy footsteps and merry whistle, and somehow Fay was a little quieter too.
For a change was passing over Hugh’s Wee Wifie in those early spring days.
With the new hope there came a new and tender expression on her sweet face.
She grew less child-like and more womanly, and day by day there grew a certain modest dignity that became her well. Hugh was very gentle with her, and careful to guard her from all imprudence; but life was very difficult to him just then, and he could not always restrain his growing irritability.
He was ill, and yet unwilling to own anything was amiss. He scoffed at the idea that his nerves were disorganized; and with the utmost recklessness seemed bent on ruining his fine constitution.
His restlessness and inward struggles were making him thin and haggard; still any fatigue was better than inaction, he thought. Often, after a long day spent in riding over the Redmond and Wyngate estates, he would set out again, often fasting, to walk across plowed lands and through miry lanes to visit some sick laborer, and then sit up half the night in his solitary study.
Years afterward he owned that he never looked back on this part of his life without an inward shudder.
What would have become of him, he said, if the hand of Providence had not laid him low before he had succeeded in ruining himself, body and soul?