; but she had been overtaken
with her fawn, and one of the huntsmen had dispatched her with his
knife.

Hugh had stood by and shuddered at the dumb look of anguish in the
wild deer-eyes, as with a sobbing breath the poor creature breathed
its last, its helpless fawn licking its red wounds. Hugh had not been
able to forget that look for a long time; and now it recurred to his
memory, and he could not tell why Fay's eyes reminded him so much of
the dying doe's--it was an absurd morbid idea. And then he touched his
black mare a little smartly, and tried to efface the recollection by a
rousing gallop. But, do what he would, he could not get it out of his
mind that his Wee Wifie was sadly altered; she was not the same Fay
whose little tripping feet had raced Nero and Pierre along the
galleries with that ringing laugh. This was a tired Fay who rarely
spoke and never laughed--who seemed to care for nothing but her baby.

Hugh used to tell her so sometimes, with an inexplicable feeling of
jealousy that rather surprised him; but Fay did not understand him.

"What does it matter for whom I care?" she would say to herself. "I
must love my own baby." And then she would think bitterly that Hugh
seemed to like her better now that she had ceased to vex him with her
childish demonstrations. "I am getting very dignified," she thought,
"and very quiet; and I think this pleases him. Do old people feel like
this, I wonder, when all their life is ended, and they have such
feeble, aching limbs? Ah, no; I do not believe they suffer at all. But
now I seem as though I can never rest for my longing that Hugh may
love me, and tell me so before I die." And so she would press on in
her sad plaintive little way.

No wonder Sir Hugh marveled at her, so silent of tongue, so grave of
look--such an altered Wee Wifie; but all the conclusion at which he
arrived was that the baby had been too much for her, and that, when
the summer heat was over, she would grow strong again. And Fay never
contradicted him.

And by and by, when the days grew a little cooler, Fay began to creep
about the garden a little, and call herself well. Hugh drove her out
once or twice in her pony-carriage; but she saw he did not like it,
and begged him to let her go alone--such reluctant courtesies gave her
no pleasure. But presently Erle came for a brief visit, and was her
ready escort, and after that she really began to mend.

CHAPTER XXXI.

FAY'S MISTAKE.

She l