her dry lips would hardly fashion the
words.

"Oh, yes," returned Fay, eagerly. "Doctor Martin says he is quieter,
much quieter, this morning, and he hopes to find decided improvement
in a few hours; oh, Miss Ferrers, it has been such a terrible time, I
do not know how I have lived through it."

"It must have been dreadful for you, and you are looking ill yourself,
Lady Redmond," with a pitying glance at the small white face that
looked smaller and thinner since she saw it last.

"I do not know how I have been," returned Fay, simply. "I seemed to
have no feeling, the time passed somehow, it was always meal-time, and
one could not eat, and then night came, but it was not always possible
to sleep. I was always wandering about, and it did not seem easy to
pray, and then they came and told me it was wrong to grieve so, but
how could I help it?"

"Was there no one to come to you, to be with you, I mean?" but Fay
shook her head.

"I did not want them. Aunt Griselda would have come, but I would not
let them send for her, she would only have troubled me. Erle--Erle
Huntingdon I mean--came down, but I did not want to see him; it only
made me cry, so he went away, and since then I have been alone."

"Poor child," returned Margaret, softly. Yes, she was not too young to
suffer; she and Raby had not done full justice to her. The childish
face had lost its baby roundness; the beautiful eyes were dim with
weeping; the strained white look of endurance that one sees on older
faces was on hers: and, with a sudden impulse that she could not
control, Margaret stooped and kissed her. "Oh, I am so sorry for you,
what you must have suffered," she said, in a voice that seemed full of
tears.

Fay responded to the caress most warmly. "Oh, you are always so kind;
one feels you understand without telling. I thought you would be sorry
for me. Do you know I did something dreadfully wrong yesterday; they
have never let me see him--they have shut me out of my husband's
room--but last evening Saville left the door ajar, and I went in."

"You went in; oh, Lady Redmond!" and Margaret shuddered as though the
sea breezes chilled her.

"Yes, and he did not know me; fancy a husband not knowing his wife.
They had cut off his beautiful hair, and be looked so strange, and his
eyes were so bright and large, and then, when I kissed him, he pushed
me away. Miss Ferrers"--with a quick remembrance of the housekeeper's
words--"you were old friends, at l