Erle and she were better friends than ever; but they did not resume their old confidential talks. Erle had grown strangely reticent about his own affairs, and spoke little of his fiancée and his approaching marriage. He knew in his heart that Fay had read him truly, and knew that his warmest affections had been given to Fern, and he had an uneasy consciousness that she condemned his conduct.
Fay never told him so; she congratulated him very prettily, and made one of her old mischievous speeches about “the young lady with the go in her”—but somehow it seemed to fall flat; and she asked him a few questions, as in duty bound, about his prospects, and how often he saw Miss Selby, and if he would bring her down to Redmond Hall, one day; “for I mean to be very fond of your wife, Erle, whoever she may be,” she continued; “and I hear from the Trelawneys that Miss Selby—but I must call her Evelyn now—is very nice indeed, and that you are to be congratulated.”
“She is far too good for me,” returned Erle, with a touch of real feeling, for his fiancée’s unselfish devotion was a daily reproach to him. Could any girl be sweeter or more loving, he thought.
Fay sighed as she watched him. Erle had changed too, she said to herself; he was nicer, but he had lost his old careless merriment; he looked graver, and a little thin, and there was not always a happy look in his eyes. Fay sometimes feared that the other girl with the fair hair had not been forgotten; she wanted to tell him that she hoped Evelyn knew all about her, but she lacked the courage, and somehow it was not so easy to talk to Erle this time.
But there was one subject on which he dilated without reserve, and that was on Mr. Ferrers’s search for Crystal. He was in New York now, he told Fay, with his sister, and he was waiting for further intelligence before he followed Miss Davenport. “Miss Trafford corresponds with him,” he continued, with an effort; “but it seems the travelers have little time for writing.” But he wondered, as he talked about the Ferrers, why Fay changed color so often—he had heard it was a sign of delicacy.
“I am tiring you,” he said, hastily; “you are looking quite pale; you want a change sadly yourself, my Fairy Queen.” And Hugh, entering the room at that moment, caught at the word and came up quickly to the couch.
“Don’t you feel so well to-day, pet?” he asked, kindly; “why are you talking about a change?”
“It was only Erle’s nonsense, dear,” she said, hurriedly. She never could speak to him without a painful blush, and it always deepened if he looked at her long, as he did now.
“I never saw you look better than you do to-day,” returned her husband; “she is quite rosy, is she not, Erle? But you are right, and a change will do her and the boy good. I was thinking how you would like to go down to Devonshire, Fay, while I am away?”
“Away?” she said, very quietly; “where are you going, Hugh?”—but there was no surprise in her face.