“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.