utter security came over her. She hardly knew
how time passed. There were hours when she did not always feel
unhappy. The truth was, she was for a long time utterly benumbed by
pain; a total collapse of mind and body had ensued on her flight from
her home. She had suffered too much for her age and strength. Sir
Hugh's alarming illness, and her suspense and terror, had been
followed by the shock of hearing from his own lips of his love and
engagement to Margaret; and, before she could rally her forces to bear
this new blow, her baby had been born.

Fay used to wonder sometimes at her own languid indifference. "Am I
really able to live without Hugh?" she would say to herself. "I thought
it must have killed me long ago, knowing that he does not love me; but
somehow I do not feel able to think of it all; and when I go to bed I
fall asleep."

Fay was mercifully unconscious of her own heart-break, though the look
in her eyes often made Mrs. Duncan weep. When she grew a little
stronger her old restlessness returned, and she went beyond the garden
and the orchard. She never wandered about the village, people seemed
to stare at her so; but her favorite haunt was the falls. There was a
steep little path by a wicket-gate that led to a covered rustic bench,
where Fay could see the falls above her shooting down like a silver
streak from under the single graceful arch of the road-way; not
falling sheer down, but broken by many a ledge and bowlder of black
rock, where in summer-time the spray beat on the long delicate fronds
of ferns.

Fay remembered how she used to stroll through the under-wood and
gather the slender blue and white harebells that came peeping out of
the green moss, or hunted for the waxy blossoms of the bell-heather;
how lovely the place had looked then, with the rowans or witchens, as
they called them--the mountain ash of the south, drooping over the
water, laden heavily with clusters of coral-like berries, sometimes
tinging the snowy foam with a faint rose-tint, and fringed in the
background with larch and silver birch; the whole mass of luxuriant
foliage nearly shutting out the little strip of sky which gleamed
pearly blue through a delicate network of leaves.

It was an enchanting spot in summer or autumn, but even in winter Fay
loved it; its solitude and peacefulness fascinated her. But one day
she found its solitude invaded. She had been some months at the Manse,
but she had not once spoken to the young m