Jean would not have lifted a finger to restore Fay to her husband. The blunt Scotch handmaiden could not abide men--"a puir-hearted, feckless lot," as she was wont to say. Of course the old master and Mr. Fergus were exceptions to this. Jean worshiped her master; and though she held the doctrine of original sin, would never have owned that Mr. Fergus had a fault. But to the rest of mankind she was suspiciously uncharitable. "To think he drove her from him--the puir bit lammie," she would say; "and yet the law can't have the hanging of him. Redmond, indeed! but he won't own to any such name. It is lucky the old mistress is not ower sharp-sighted--but there, such an idea would never get into her head." Fay's secret was quite safe with Jean, and, as the weeks and months went on, a feeling of 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.