It was an added burden that Erle could not come to him; but there was trouble at Belgrave House, and the shadows were closing round it. Erle could not leave his uncle, but he wrote very kindly to poor conscience-stricken Hugh, and said all he could to comfort him.
It was in those hours of dreary helplessness that Hugh learned to miss his Wee Wifie. In those long summer afternoons, while his foreign nurse nodded drowsily before him, and the hot air crept sluggishly in at the open window, how he longed for the small cool hand that used to be laid so softly on his temples, or put the drink to his parched lips before they could frame their want. He remembered the hours she had sat beside him, fanning the flies from his pillow or bathing his aching head. She had never left him—never seemed tired or impatient, though her face had grown so pale with watching. Others would have spared her; others told him that she was spent and weary, but he had never noticed it. “And, brute that I was,” he thought, “I left her alone in her trouble with only strangers and hirelings about her, to fight her way through the very Valley of the Shadow of Death.” He took out her letter and smoothed it out—it was a trick of his when he thought no one would see him. He had read it over until he knew every word by heart. Ah! if Heaven would but spare him this once and give him back the strength he had misused, that he might find her, poor child, and bring her home, and comfort her as only he could comfort her. He would love her now, he thought; yes, if she would only bear with him and give him time, he knew from the deep pity and tenderness which he felt that he would love her yet, for the merciful Providence that had laid the erring man low was teaching him lessons that no other discipline could have inculcated.
The cold December wind was whirling through the bare branches of the oaks and beeches in the Redmond avenue when Sir Hugh came home, a changed and saddened man.
Yes, changed outwardly as well as inwardly. Good Mrs. Heron cried when she saw him enter the hall on Saville’s arm, looking so thin and worn, and leaning on his stick.
His youth seemed to have passed away; his smooth forehead was already furrowed like that of a middle-aged man, and his fair hair had worn off it slightly, making him look ten years older; and yet there was that in Hugh Redmond’s face, if Margaret could have seen it, that would have filled her pure heart with exceeding thankfulness.
For though the pallor caused by suffering was still there, and those who saw him said Sir Hugh was a broken man, yet there was a nobler expression than it had ever worn in happier days. The old fretful lines round the mouth were gone; and, though the eyes looked sadly round at the old familiar faces, as though missing the truest and best, still, there was a chastened gravity about his whole mien that spoke of a new and earnest purpose; of a heart so humbled at last that it had fled to its best refuge, and had found strength in the time of need.
Many years afterward he owned, to one who was ever his closest friend, that a whole life-time of suffering had been compressed into those few short years that had followed his father’s death. The whole plan and purpose of his youth had been marred; his heart wasted by a passion that was denied satisfaction; and lastly, just as he was beginning to turn to his neglected wife with a sympathy and interest that promised well for her future happiness, suddenly he found his name outraged and his home forsaken, and the load and terror of an unbearable remorse laid heavily upon him.
That was a strange winter to Hugh Redmond—the strangest and saddest he had ever passed; when he spent long, solitary days in the old Hall; and only Erle—generous, kind-hearted Erle—came now and then to break his solitude.
Ah! he missed her then.
Sometimes, as he wandered disconsolately through the empty rooms, or sat by his lonely fireside in the twilight, the fancy would haunt him that she would come back to him yet—that the door would open, and a little figure come stealing through the darkness and run into his arms with a low, glad cry. And sometimes, when he stood in her room and saw the empty cot over which she used to hang so fondly, a longing would seize him for the boy whom he had never held in his arms.