ands were not
burning like live coals; and that he meant if it were fine to drive
Fay out in the pony-carriage to-morrow, and they would go and call on
Margaret.

Fay stared, as well she might. Did Hugh mean Miss Ferrers? she asked,
timidly.

And Hugh, speaking thickly, like a drunken man, said, "Yes, certainly!
and why not?" and he would ask Margaret to go with him to Shepherd's
Corner to-morrow, and see Tim Hartlebury, who was lying dying or dead,
he did not know which; but apropos to the Sudbury politics, and the
old Tory member, Lord Lyndhurst of Lyndhurst, at whom the Radical
party, with the publican of the Green Drake at their head, had shied
rotten eggs, would Lady Redmond assure him that the Grange was not
infested with serpents. The old hydra-headed reptile had lived there
in his father's time, and there was a young brood left, he heard, that
were nourished on Margaret's roses. No, he repeated, if there were
serpents at the Grange they would not drive there, for he was afraid
of Raby, and he hated parsons, for even blind ones could see
sometimes, and they might tell tales--lies--he said, beating wildly on
the bedclothes; lies, every one of them, and would they please take
away his Wee Wifie, for he was tired of her. And Fay, trembling very
much, called out to Saville to come quickly, for Sir Hugh was talking
so funnily, she could not make out what he meant. And Saville, as he
stood and held his master's hands, thought his talk so very fanny that
he summoned Mrs. Heron and Ellerton at once, while the groom saddled
one of the horses and galloped off for Dr. Martin; and when Dr.
Martin arrived, and had seen his patient, the mystery was soon
cleared.

Sir Hugh had brain fever; and that night Ellerton and Saville had to
hold him down in his bed to prevent him throwing himself from the
window. He very nearly did it once in the cunning of his madness, when
they left him unguarded for a moment; and after that they had to strap
him down.

They had taken his Wee Wifie from him almost by force; she had clung
to him so--her poor mad Hugh, as she called him. But Mrs. Heron took
the distracted young creature in her motherly arms when Dr. Martin
brought her downstairs, and soothed her as though she were a child.
Fay put her head down on the housekeeper's shoulder and cried until
she could cry no longer. "Will he die--will my darling die?" was all
she could say at first; and then she would ask piteously to go back to
hi