“If you would only trust us, and give us your confidence,” he continued, earnestly. “Aunt Jeanie is not a woman of the world, but she has plenty of common sense; and forgive me if I say you are very young, and may need guidance. You can not hide from us that you are very unhappy, and that the husband you have left is still dear to you—” But Fay could hear no more; she rose with a low sob and left the room, and Fergus’s little homily on wifely forbearance was not finished.
It was so each time that he reopened the subject. Fay would listen up to a certain point, and seem touched by the young minister’s kindness and sympathy, but he could not induce her to open her heart to him. She was unhappy—yes, she allowed that; she had no wish to leave her husband, but circumstances had been too strong for her, and nothing would induce her to admit that she had done wrong.
“Who would have thought that little creature had so much tenacity and will,” Fergus said to himself, with a sort of vexed admiration, after one of these conversations; “why, Lilian is a big woman compared to Mrs. St. Clair, and yet my lassie has not a tithe of her spirit. Well, I’ll bide my time; but it will not be my fault if I fail to have a grip of her yet.”
But the spring sunshine touched the ragged tops of Ben-muich-dhui and Ben-na-hourd before Fergus got his “grip.”
He was taking his porridge one morning, with an English paper lying beside his plate, when he suddenly started, and seemed all at once very much absorbed in what he was reading. A few minutes afterward, when Fay was stooping over her boy, who lay on the carpet beside her, sprawling in the sunshine, he raised his eyes, and looked at her keenly from under his bent brows; but he said nothing, and shortly afterward went off to his study; and when he was alone, he spread out the paper before him, and again studied it intently.
A paragraph in the second column had attracted his attention—
“A reward of two hundred pounds is offered to any person who can give such information of Lady Redmond and her child as may lead to them being restored to their friends. All communications to be forwarded to Messrs. Green and Richardson, Lincoln’s Inn.”
And just above—
“Fay, your husband entreats you to return to your home, or at least relieve his anxiety with respect to you and the child. Only come back, and all will be well.
“Hugh.”
“And Hugh is the baby’s name. Ay, my lady, I think I have the grip of you at last,” muttered Fergus, as he drew the inkstand nearer to him.