Chapter II: Part 2

So this illness of Haddon’s had really been a boon to her, and perhaps to others as well; but for a few weeks Monica’s life seemed passed in a sort of dream, and she was able to notice but little that passed around her. She was wrapped in a strange trance—she lived in the past with her husband, who sometimes hardly seemed to have left her. Only when ministering to the needs of the young earl did she arouse herself from her waking dream, and even then it sometimes seemed as if the dream were the reality, and the reality a dream.

Tom was a great deal at Trevlyn just now. For a long time Haddon’s condition was so exceedingly critical that his presence was almost a necessity, and when the patient gradually became convalescent, Monica needed his help in getting through the business formalities that began to crowd upon her when all hopes of Randolph’s rescue became a thing of the past.

Monica was happy at least in this—there was no need for her to leave her old home—no new earl to claim Trevlyn, and banish her from the place she loved best in the world. The Trevlyns were a dying race, as it seemed. Randolph and Monica were the last of their name, and the entail expired with him. Trevlyn was hers, as well as all her husband’s property. She was a rich woman, but in the first instance it was difficult to understand the position, and she naturally turned in her perplexity to Tom Pendrill, who was a thorough man of business, shrewd and hard-headed, and who, from his long acquaintance and connection with Trevlyn, understood more about the estate than anybody else she could have selected. He was very good to her, as she always said. He put himself entirely at her disposal, and played the part of a kind and wise brother. His dry, matter-of-fact manner of dealing with transfer of property, and such-like matters, was in itself a comfort. She was never afraid of talking things over with him. He kept sentiment studiously and entirely in the back-ground. Although she knew perfectly that his sympathy for her was very great, he never obtruded it upon her in the least; it was offered and accepted in perfect silence on both sides.

Mrs. Pendrill, too, was a good deal at Trevlyn. She yearned over Monica in the days of her early widowhood, and she had grown very fond of Beatrice and her brother. Haddon wanted so very much care and nursing that Mrs. Pendrill’s presence in the house was often a help to all. Whilst Monica was in the sick room, she and Beatrice spent many long hours together, and strange intimacy of thought sprang up between those two who were so far from each other in age and position. Haddon, too, was fond of the gentle-faced old lady, and he loved sometimes to get her all to herself, and make her talk to him of Monica.

His illness had left its traces upon the earl. He had, despite his five-and-twenty years, seemed but a lad all this while; but when he left his bed, it was curious to see how much of boyishness had passed out of his face, how much quiet, thoughtful manliness had taken its place.

Nobody quite knew how or why this change had been so marked. Perhaps the shock of his friend’s death had had something to do with it: perhaps the danger he had himself been in. Very near indeed to the gates of death had the young man stood. He had almost trodden the shadowy valley, even though his steps had been retraced to the land of the living. Perhaps it was this knowledge that made him pass as it were in one bound from boyhood to manhood—or was there some other cause at work?

His face wore a look of curious purpose and resolution, oddly combined with a sort of mute, determined patience: his pale, sharpened face, that had changed so much during the past weeks, was changed in expression even more than in contour. His grey eyes, once always full of boyish merriment and laughter, were grave and earnest now: the eyes of a man full of thought, expressive of a hidden yet resolute purpose. These hollow eyes followed Monica about with unconscious persistency, and rested upon her with a sense of perfect content. When he grew a little stronger, and could just rise from the sofa and trail himself across the room, it was strange to mark how eager he was to render her those little instinctive attentions that come naturally from a man to a woman.

Sometimes Monica would accept them with a smile, oftener she would restrain him with a gentle commanding gesture, and bid him keep quiet till he was stronger; but she accepted his chivalrous admiration in the spirit in which it was offered, and let him look upon himself as her especial knight, as well he might, since to her skill and care Tom plainly told him he owed his life.

She let him talk to her of Randolph, though none of the others dared to breathe that name. Sometimes she played to him in the dimness of the music-room—and even he hardly knew how privileged he was to be admitted there. She regarded him in the light of a loved brother, and felt tenderly towards him, as one who had done and suffered much in the same cause that had cost her gallant husband his life. What he felt towards her would be more difficult to analyse. At present he simply worshipped her, with a humble, devout singleness of purpose that elevated his whole nature. The vague, fleeting, distant hope that some day it might be given to him to comfort her had hardly yet entered into the region of conscious thought.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

HAUNTED.

Christmas had come and gone whilst Lord Haddon lay hovering between life and death. As the year turned, he began to regain health and strength; but his progress was exceedingly slow, and all idea of leaving Trevlyn was for the present entirely out of the question. A journey in mid-winter was not to be thought of. It would be enough to bring the whole illness back again; and Monica would not listen when he sometimes said, with diffidence and appeal, that he feared they were encroaching too much upon her hospitality and goodness. In truth, neither brother nor sister were in haste to leave Trevlyn, or to leave Monica alone in her desolate widowhood; and as Haddon’s state of health rendered a move out of the question, the situation was accepted with the more readiness.

Monica was able now to resume something of the even tenor of her way, to take up her daily round of duties, and shape out her life in accordance with her strangely altered circumstances.

All the old sense of dread connected with the sea had now vanished entirely. It never frowned upon her now. It was her friend always—the haunting presentiment of dread had passed away with the actual certainty. Henceforward nothing could hold for her any great measure of terror. She had passed through the very worst already.

Sometimes Monica had a strange feeling that she was not alone during her favourite twilight pacings by the sea. She had a sense of being watched—followed—and the uneasiness of the dogs added to this impression. It troubled her but little, however. She had no fears for herself—she knew, too, that she was a little fanciful, and that it was hardly likely in reality that her footsteps were dogged.

But one dim January evening, as she pursued her way along the margin of the sea, she was startled by seeing some large object lying dark upon the pebbly beach. Her heart beat more fast than was its wont, for she saw as she approached that it was the figure of a man, lying face downwards upon the damp stones.

He did not look like a fisherman, he was too well dressed, and there seemed something not altogether unfamiliar in the aspect of the slight, well-proportioned figure. For a moment she could not recall the association, but as the dogs ran up snuffing and growling, the man started and sat up, revealing the pale, haggard face of Conrad Fitzgerald.

Monica recoiled with an instinctive gesture of aversion. She had not seen him since those summer days when she had been haunted by the vision of his vindictive face and sinister eyes. But how he had changed since then! She could not help looking at him, he was so pale, so thin; his face was lined as if by pain, and his fiery eyes were set in deep hollows. There was something rather awful in his appearance, yet he did not look so wicked, so repulsive, as he had done many times before.

A strange look of terror gleamed in his eyes as they met those of Monica.

“Go away!” he cried wildly. “What do you come here for? Why do you look at me like that? Go—in mercy, go!”

Monica was startled at his wild words and looks. Surely he was mad. But if so, she must show no fear of him; she knew enough to be aware of that.

“What are you doing out here in the dark?” she said. “You ought not to be lying there this cold night. You had better go home, or you will lose your way in the dark.”

He laughed wildly.

“Lose my way in the dark! It is always dark now—always, since that dark night—ha! ha!—that night!” His laugh was terrible in its wild despair. “Why do you look at me? Why do you speak to me? You should not! You should not! You would not if——oh, God! are you a ghost too?”

Such an awful look of horror shone out of his eyes that Monica’s blood ran cold. His gaze was fixed on vacancy. He looked straight at her, yet as if he did not see her, but something beyond. The anguish and despair painted upon that wild, yet still beautiful, face smote Monica’s heart with a sense of deep sorrow and pity.

“I am no ghost, Conrad,” she answered gently, trying if the sound of the old name would drive that wild madness out of his eyes. “Why are you afraid? What are you looking at? There is nothing there.”

For his eyes were still glaring wildly into the darkness beyond, and as Monica spoke he lifted his arm, and pointed to something out at sea.

“Don’t look at me!” he whispered hoarsely, yet not as if he addressed Monica. “Don’t speak to me! If you speak, I shall go mad! I shall go mad, I say! Why do you haunt me so? Why do you look always like that? I had a right—all is fair in love and war—and hate! Why did you give me the chance? I had a vow—a vow in heaven—or hell! Ah! ha! Revenge is sweet, after all!” and he burst into a wild, discordant laugh, dreadful to hear.

Monica shuddered, a sense of horror creeping over her. She did not catch the whole of his words, lost as that hoarse whisper was sometimes in the sullen plash of the advancing waves. The words were not addressed to her, but to some imaginary object visible only to the eye of madness. She attached no meaning to what she heard. She had no clue by which to unravel the workings of his disordered mind. Yet it was terrible to see his terror-stricken face, and listen to the exclamations addressed to a phantom foe. She tried to recall him to himself.

“Conrad, there is no one here but ourselves. You have been dreaming.”

Conrad turned his wild eyes towards her, but continued to point wildly over the sea.

“Can you not see him? There—out there! His head—his eyes—ah, those eyes!—as he looked _then_—then! Ah, don’t look so at me, I say! You will kill me!”

He buried his face in his hands and shuddered from head to foot. Monica, despite the shiver of horror that crept over her, felt more strongly than anything else a deep pity for one whose mind was so visibly shattered. Much of the past could be condoned to one whose mental faculties were so terribly unstrung. She came one step nearer, and laid her hand upon his arm.

“You should not be out here alone,” she said. “You had better go home. It is growing dark already. If you will come with me to the lodge, I will see that you have a lantern; or, if you like, I will send a servant with a lantern with you.” She felt, indeed, that he was hardly in a condition to be out alone. She wished Tom Pendrill could see him now. But at the touch of her hand Conrad sprang back as if she had struck him. His eyes were full of shrinking horror.

“Go away!” he said fiercely, “your hand burns me—it burns me, I say! How can you look at me or touch me? What have I done that you come here day by day to torment me? Is it not enough that _he_ leaves me no peace night or day?—that he brings me down to this cursed place, whether I will or no, but you must haunt me too? Ah, it is too much—it is too much, I say!”

She could not catch all these rapidly-uttered words, but she read the hopeless misery of his face.

“I do not wish to distress you, Conrad. Will you go home quietly now? You are not well; you should not be out here alone. Have you anybody there to take care of you?”

He laughed again, and flung his arms above his head with a wild gesture of despair.

“You say this to me—you! you! It only wanted this. My God, this is too much!”

He turned from her and sprang away in the darkness. She heard his steps as he dashed recklessly up the cliff path—so recklessly that she half expected to hear the sound of a slip and a fall—and then as he reached the summit and turned inland, they died away into silence.

Monica drew a long breath of relief when she found herself alone. There was something expressibly awful in talking alone to a madman in the dimness of the dying day, in hearing his wild words addressed to some phantom shadow seen only by his disordered vision. She shivered a little as she turned towards him. She could stay no longer in that lonely place.

She met Tom looking out for her on her return. He said something about her staying out too long in the darkness. She laid her hand upon his arm, and pacing up and down the dark avenue, she told him of her adventure with the madman.

“Tom, I am certain he ought to see a doctor. Will you not see if you can do something for him?”

She could not see the expression of Tom’s face. Had she been able to do so, she would have been startled. His voice was very cold as he answered:

“I am not a lunacy commissioner, Monica.”

She was surprised, and a little hurt.

“You are very hard, Tom. You saw him once before, why not again?”

“If he, or his friends for him, require medical advice, I suppose they are capable of sending for it,” he said, adding with sudden fierceness, as it seemed to her, “Monica, Conrad Fitzgerald, ill or well, is nothing to you. It is not fit you should waste a single thought upon that scoundrel again!”

She was surprised at his vehemence; it was so unlike Tom to speak with heat. What had there been in her account of the meeting to discompose him so greatly? Before she could attempt to frame the question, he had asked one of her—asked it abruptly, as it seemed irrelevantly.

“How long has Fitzgerald been in these parts?”

“I don’t know? I have never seen him till to-night, nor heard of him at all?”

“Nor I. Go in, Monica. It is too late for you to be out.”

“And you?”

“I will come presently.”

“And you will think about what I asked you?”

“I will think about it—yes.”

The tone was enigmatic. She could not make Tom out at all, but she went in at his bidding. She knew that he wished to be alone, that he had something disturbing upon his mind, though what it was she could not divine.

Tom, as it turned out, had no choice in the matter; for his brother sent to him next day a message to the effect that Fitzgerald’s servant had been to him with a very sad account of his master, who seemed to be suffering under an acute attack of delirium tremens. Raymond thought his brother, who had seen him once before, had better go the next day in a casual sort of way, and see if he could do anything. Fitzgerald was furious at the idea of having a doctor near him; but possibly he would not regard Tom in that light, and the servants would do all they could to obtain for him access to their master. They were terrified at his ravings, and half afraid he would do himself or them an injury if not placed under proper control.

So Tom, upon the following afternoon, started for the old dilapidated house, without saying a word to anyone as to his destination, and was eagerly admitted by a haggard-looking servant, who said that his master was “terrible bad to-day—it was awful like to hear him go on,” and expressed it as his opinion that he was almost past knowing who was near him, he was so wild and delirious. He had kept his bed for the past two days, having been very ill since coming in, wet and exhausted, on the night Monica had seen him. Between the attacks of delirium he was as weak as a child; and with this much of warning and explanation, Tom was ushered upstairs.

An hour later he left that desolate house with a quick, firm tread, that broke, as he turned a corner and was concealed from view, almost to a run. His face was very pale; it looked thinner and sharper than it had done an hour before, and his eyes were full of an unspeakable horror. Now and again a sort of shudder ran through his frame; but no word passed his tightly-compressed lips. He hurried through the tangled park as if some deadly malaria lurked there. He hardly drew his breath until he had left the trees and brake behind, and had plunged into the wild trackless moor; even then, goaded by his thoughts, he plunged blindly along for a mile or more, until at last, breathless and exhausted, he sank face downwards upon the heather, trembling in every limb.

How long he lay there he never knew. He was roused at last by a touch upon his shoulder, and raising himself with a start, he looked straight into the startled eyes of Beatrice Wentworth.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

LOVERS.

Tom sprang to his feet, and the two stood gazing at one another for a moment in mute surprise.

“You are ill,” said Beatrice; “you are as white as a sheet. What is the matter?”

She spoke anxiously. She looked half frightened at his strange looks; he saw it, and recovered himself instantly. It was perhaps the first time he had ever been taken unawares, and he was not altogether pleased that it had happened now.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” he asked peremptorily.

“What are you doing lying on the ground on a cold January evening?” she retorted. “Do you want to get rheumatic fever, too?”

“Answer my question first. What are you doing out here, miles away from home, with the darkness coming on, too?”

“I lost my way,” she answered carelessly. “I never can keep my bearings in these strange, wild places, where everything looks alike.”

“Then I must take you home,” said Tom shortly.

“You said you were going to dine at St. Maws to-night,” she objected.

“I shall take you home first,” he said.

“It will be ever so much out of your road. Just show me the way. I shall find it fast enough.”

“I dare say—After having lost it in broad daylight. You must come with me. I cannot trust you.”

Beatrice flushed hotly as she turned and walked beside him. Was more meant than met the ear?

“There is not the least need you should,” she said haughtily, and seemed disposed to say no more.

Tom spoke first, spoke in his abrupt peremptory fashion. He was absorbed and distrait. She tried not to feel disappointed at his words.

“Lady Beatrice, is it true that you knew Randolph Trevlyn intimately for many years?”

“Ever since I can remember. He was almost like a brother to us.”

“Do you know if he ever had an enemy?”

Beatrice looked up quickly into his pale face.

“Why do you ask?”

“That is my affair. I do not ask without a reason. Think before you answer—if you can.”

“Randolph was always such a favourite,” she began, but was interrupted by a quick impatient gesture from Tom.

“Don’t chatter,” he said, almost rudely, “think!”

Oddly enough this brusque reminder did not offend her. She saw that Tom’s nerves were all on edge, that they were strung to a painful pitch of tension. She began to catch some of his earnestness and determination.

Beatrice was taken out of herself, and from that moment her manner changed for the better. She thought the matter over in silence.

“I have heard that Sir Conrad Fitzgerald had an old grudge against him.”

“Ah!” breathed Tom softly.

“But I fancied, perhaps, that Monica’s influence had made them friends. Randolph knew some disreputable story connected with Sir Conrad’s past life—Haddon knows more about it than I do—and he always hated him for it.”

“Ah!” said Tom again.

“Why do you ask?” questioned Beatrice again; but he gave her no answer. He was wrapped in deep thought. She looked at him once or twice, but said no more. He was the first to speak, and the question was a little significant.

“You were down on the shore with Monica and Trevlyn that night, were you not?”

“Yes.”

“Was Fitzgerald there, too?”

She looked at him with startled eyes.

“No; certainly not.”

“Can you be sure of that? Was there moon enough to show plainly everything that went on?”

Beatrice put up her hand to her head.

“No,” she answered. “I ought not to have spoken so positively. It was too dark to see anything. There might have been dozens of people there whom I might never have seen. I was much too anxious and excited to keep a sharp look-out—why should I?—and there was not a gleam of moonlight till many minutes after the boat got back, and the confusion was very great all the time. Why do you talk so? Why do you ask such a question?”

She spoke with subdued excitement and insistance.

“_Somebody_ was in that boat unknown to the crew,” he answered significantly.

“Was there?”

“Somebody steered the boat to shore. You do not share, I presume, in the popular belief of the phantom coxswain?”

Beatrice stopped short, trembling and scared.

“You think——?” but she could only get out those two words; she knew not how to frame the question.

He bent his head. “I do.”

But she put out her hand with a quick, passionate gesture, as if fighting with some hideous phantom.

“Ah! no! no! It could not be. It would be too unspeakably awful—too horrible! How do you know? How can you say such things? What has put such a hideous thought into your mind?”

“I came from standing by Fitzgerald’s bed, listening to his words of wandering, his delirious outbursts. It is plain enough what phantoms are haunting him now—what pictures he is seeing, as he lies in the stupor of drink and opium. He is trying to drown thought and remorse, but he has not succeeded yet.”

Beatrice shuddered strongly, and faltered a little in her walk. Tom took her hand and placed it within his arm.

“You are tired, Beatrice?”

“No; but it is so awful. Tom”—calling him so as unconsciously as he had called her Beatrice—“must Monica know this? Oh! it was cruel enough before—but this——”

“She shall never know,” said Tom quickly. “To what end should we add this burden to what she carries now? No one could prove it—it may be nothing more than some sick fancy, engendered by the thought of what might have been. Mind you, I have no moral doubts myself; but the man is practically mad, and no confession or evidence given by him would be accepted. He has fulfilled his vow—he has murdered—practically murdered his foe; but Monica must be spared the knowledge: she must never know.”

“No, never! never!” cried Beatrice; and her voice expressed so much feeling, that Tom turned and looked at her in the fading light.

“Have you a heart after all, Beatrice?” he asked.

She made no answer; her heart beat wildly, answering in its own fashion the question asked, but not in a way that he could hear.

“Beatrice,” rather fiercely, “why did you not marry the marquis?”

“Because I loathed him.”

“You did not always loathe him?”

“I did, I did, always.”

“You flirted with him disgracefully, then.”

She looked up with something of pleading in her dark eyes.

“I was but eighteen.”

“Do you never flirt now?”

She looked up again, her eyes flashing strangely.

“What right have you to ask such a question?”

“The right of the man who loves you,” he answered, in the same half-fierce, half-bitter way—“who loves you with every fibre of his being; and although he has proved you vain and frivolous and heartless once and again, cannot tear your image from his heart. Do not think I am complaining. I suppose you have a right to please yourself; but sometimes I feel as if no man had ever been treated so abominably as I have been by you.”

“You by me!” she answered, panting in her excitement, “when it was you who left me in a fury, without one word of farewell.”

“I thought I had had my _congé_ pretty distinctly.”

“You had had nothing of the kind—nothing but a few wild confused words from a mere child, frightened and bewildered by happiness and nervousness into the silliest of speeches a silly girl could make at such a moment. But you cannot understand—you never will—you are made of stone, I think.”

He turned upon her quickly.

“I wish I were, sometimes,” he said; “I wish it when I am near you. You make me love you—I am powerless in your hands, and you—you——”

“I love you with all my heart. I have never loved anybody else, and you have behaved cruelly, disgracefully to me always.” The words came all at once in one vehement burst of passion.

He stopped short, wheeled round, and stood facing her. He could only just see her face as they stood thus in the gathering dusk.

“Beatrice,” he said, slowly, “what did you say just now? Say it again.”

Defiance shone out of her eyes.

“I will not!” she said, her cheeks flaming.

He took both her hands in his and held them hard.

“Yes you will,” he answered. “Say it again.”

She was panting with a strange mixture of feeling; the earth and sky seemed to spin round together.

“Say it again, Beatrice.”

“I said—I loved you; but I don’t—I will never, never say it again——”

She got no farther, for he held her so closely in his arms that all speech was impossible for the moment.

“That will do,” he answered. “I don’t want you to say it again. Once is enough.”

* * * * *

“Monica,” said Beatrice in the softest of whispers as she came into the quiet room where her brother lay asleep upon the sofa, and Monica sat dreaming beside the fire. “Ah, Monica, Monica!” and then she stopped short, kneeling down, and turning her quivering face and swimming eyes towards the face bent tenderly over her.

Somehow it was never needful to say much to Monica. She always understood without many words. She bent her head now, and kissed Beatrice.

“Is it so, then, dear?” she asked.

“Did you know?”

“I knew what you told me yourself, and I could see for myself that he had not forgotten any more than you.”

“I did not see it.”

“Possibly not—neither did he; but sometimes love is very blind—and very wilful too.”

Was there a touch of tender reproach in the tone? Beatrice looked at her earnestly.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “We both want to be master; but I think—I am afraid—he will have the upper hand now.”

But the smile that quivered over the upturned face was full of such sweetness and brightness that Monica kissed her again.

“You will not find him such a tyrant as he professes to be. Tom is very generous and unselfish, despite his affectation of cynicism. I am so glad you have made him happy at last. I am so glad that our paths in life will not lie very widely apart.”

Beatrice took Monica’s hand and kissed it.

“I am so happy,” she said simply. “And I owe it all to you.”

Monica caressed the dark head laid against her knee, as Beatrice subsided into her favourite lowly position at Monica’s feet. Presently she became aware that the girl’s tears were falling fast.

“Crying, dearest?” she questioned gently.

A stifled sob was the answer.

“What is the matter, my child?”

“Randolph!” was all that Beatrice could get out. Somehow the desolation of Monica’s life had never come home to her with quite the same sense of realisation as now, in the hour of her deepest happiness.

“He would be glad,” answered Monica, steadily and sweetly. “He loved you dearly, Beatrice; and he and Tom were always such friends. It was his hope that all would come right. If he can see us now, as I often think he can, he will be rejoicing in your happiness now. You must shed no tears to-night, dearest, unless they are tears of happiness.”

Beatrice suddenly half rose, and hung her arms round Monica.

“How can you bear it? How can you bear it? Monica, I think you are an angel. No one in this wide world was ever like you. And to think——” she shuddered strongly and stopped short.

“You are excited and over-wrought,” said Monica gently. “You must not let yourself be knocked up, or Tom will scold me when he comes back. See, Haddon is waking up. He had such a bad headache, poor boy; I hope he has slept it off. You must tell him the news—it will please him I am sure.”

“You tell him,” whispered Beatrice, and slipped away to relieve her over-burdened heart by a burst of tears; for one strange revelation following upon another had tried her more than she had known at the time.

Haddon was quietly pleased at the news. He liked Tom; he had fancied that he and Beatrice were not altogether indifferent to each other, so this conclusion did not take him altogether by surprise. He was sorry to think of losing Beatrice, but not as perplexed as he would have been some months before. Life looked different to him now—more serious and earnest. He began to have aspirations of his own. He no longer regarded existence as a sort of pleasant easy game of play.

Certainly it seemed as if the course of true love as regarded Beatrice and Tom, after passing its early shoals and quicksands, were to run quietly and smoothly enough now. He came back from St. Maws in time for dinner, and when dessert was put on the table, he announced his plans with the hardihood characteristic of the man.

“Aunt Elizabeth is delighted, Beatrice, and so is Raymond,” he said. “I have told them that we will be married almost at once, within two months, at least—oh, you needn’t look like that. I think I’ve waited long enough—pretty well as long as Jacob——”

“Did for Leah—and didn’t like her in the end—don’t make that your precedent.”

“Well, don’t interrupt,” proceeded Tom imperturbably. “We’ve got it all beautifully arranged. I’m going to take part of the regular practice, as Raymond has always been bothering me to do ever since it increased so much, and we’re to have half the house for our establishment, and he and Aunt Elizabeth the other. It was originally two houses, and lends itself excellently to that arrangement, though I dare say practically we shall be all one household, as you and our aunt have managed to hit it off so well. Monica, can’t Beatrice be married from Trevlyn when Haddon is well enough to give her away? It would save a lot of bother. I hate flummery, and I’m sure she does too. Come now, Beatrice, don’t laugh. Don’t you think that would be an excellent arrangement? Here we are; what is the good of getting all split up again? You’ll be losing your heart to another marquis if I let you out of my sight.”

Her eyes were dancing with mischievous merriment. She was more than ready to enter the lists.

“Just listen to the tyrant—trying to keep me a prisoner already! trying to take everything into his own hands—and not content without adding insult to injury!”

His eyes too were alight; but his mouth was grim.

“I have not forgotten how you served me last time, my lady.”

“At Oxford?”

“At Oxford.”

“Monica, listen. I will tell you how I served him. I had eyes for no one but him, silly girl that I was; I was with him morning, noon and night. Child as I was at the time, careless and inexperienced, even _I_ was absolutely ashamed at the open preference I showed him; I blush even now to think of the undisguised way in which I flung myself at a particularly hard head. And yet he pretends he did not understand! If that is so, then for real, downright, hopeless stupidity and obtuseness, commend me to an Oxford double-first-class-man!”

Beatrice might get the best of it in an encounter of tongues, but Tom had his own way in the settlement of their affairs, possibly because her resistance was but a pretence. What, indeed, had they to wait for, when they had been waiting so many long years for one another?

Nothing clouded the horizon of their happiness. Even the hideous shadow which had been in a sense the means of bringing them together seemed to have vanished with the sudden disappearance of Conrad Fitzgerald from the neighbourhood. Upon the very day following Tom’s visit to him, he left his house, ill and weak as he was, to join his sister at Mentone. His servant accompanied him. The desolate house was shut up once more, and Tom Pendrill sincerely hoped that the haunting baleful influence of that wild and wicked nature had passed from their lives for ever.

And Beatrice after all was married at Trevlyn, in the little cliff church that had seen the hands of Randolph and Monica joined in wedlock. She resisted a good while, feeling afraid that it would be painful to Monica—a second wedding, and that within a few months of her own widowhood. But Monica took part with Tom, and the bride elect gave way, only too delighted at heart to be with Monica to the very last.

It was a very quiet wedding—as quiet as Monica’s own—even the people gathered together in the little church had hardly changed. Only one short year had passed since Monica in her snowy robes had stood before that little altar, with the marriage vow upon her lips—only a year ago, and now?

Yet Monica’s face was very calm and sweet. She shed no tears, she seemed to have no sad thoughts for herself, however others might feel. One pair of grey eyes seldom wandered from her face as the simple ceremonies of the day proceeded. One heart was far more occupied with thoughts of the pale-faced widow than of the blooming bride.

Haddon quitted Trevlyn almost immediately after his sister. The words of thanks he tried to speak faltered on his tongue, and would not come.

Monica understood, and answered by one of her sweetest smiles.

“You were Randolph’s friend; you are my friend now. You must not try to thank me. I am so very glad to think of the link that binds us together. I shall not lose sight of you whilst Beatrice is so near. You will come again some day?”

“Yes, Lady Trevlyn,” he answered quietly, “I will come again;” and he raised the hand he held for one moment very reverently to his lips.

As he drove away he looked back, and saw Monica still standing upon the terrace.

“Yes,” he said quietly to himself, “I will come back—some day.”

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.

“AS WE FORGIVE.”

A year had passed away since that fatal night when Randolph had left his wife standing on the shore—had gone away in the darkness and had returned no more: a year had passed, with its chequered lights and shades, but the anniversary of her husband’s death found Monica, as he had left her, at Trevlyn—alone.

Many things had happened during that year. Beatrice had married and settled happily in the picturesque red house at St. Maws as Tom Pendrill’s loving, brilliant wife. Monica had been to Germany once again, to assure herself with her own eyes of the truth of the favourable reports sent to her. She had had the satisfaction of seeing how great an improvement had taken place in Arthur’s condition; that although the cure was slow—would most likely need a second, possibly even a third year before it would be absolutely complete, yet it was practically certain, if he and those who held his fate in their hands would but have patience and perseverance. The boy was quite happy in the establishment of which he was a member. He had gone through the most trying part of the treatment, and was enthusiastic about the kindness and skill of his doctor. He had made many friends, and had quite lost the home-sickness that had occasionally troubled him at first. He was delighted to see Monica again. He was insistant that she should come to see him often; but he did not even wish to return to Trevlyn till he could do so whole and sound, as a man in good health and strength, instead of a helpless invalid.

Monica was summoned from Germany by the news of the dangerous illness of Lady Diana, who died only a few days after the arrival of her niece. She had been talking of making a permanent home at Trevlyn now that Monica was so utterly alone, but her death stopped all such schemes; and so it came about that in absolute solitude the young widowed countess took up her abode for the winter in the great silent castle beside the sea.

The sea still exercised its old fascination over Monica. Her happiest hours were spent wandering by its brink or riding along the breezy cliff. It was a friend indeed to her in those days, it frowned upon her no more. It had done its worst already—it had taken away the light of her life. Might it not be possible—was there not something of promise in its eternal music? Could it be that in some unexpected, mysterious way it would bring back some of the light that had been taken away—would be the means of uniting once again the hearts that had been so cruelly sundered? Strange thoughts and fancies flitted often through her brain, formless and indistinct, but comforting withal.

Returning to the castle at dusk one day, after one of these solitary rambles, she found an unusual bustle and excitement stirring there. Wilberforce hurried forward to explain the cause of the unwonted tumult.

“I hope I have not done wrong, my lady. You were not here to give orders, and I could only act as I felt you would wish. A lad came running in with a scared face not half an hour back, saying there was a man lying at the foot of the cliffs, as if he had fallen over. I scarce think he can be alive if that be so; but I told the men that if he was—as there is no other decent house near—I thought you would wish——”

“That he should be brought here. Quite right, Wilberforce. Is there a room ready? Has Mr. Pendrill been sent for?”

“The groom has gone this twenty minutes. Living or dead, he must have a doctor to him. The maids are getting the east room ready, yet I doubt if he can be living after such a fall.”

“He may not have fallen over the cliff. He may have been scaling it, and have dropped from but a small height. See that everything likely to be needed is ready. He may be here almost immediately now.”

She went up to the bed-room herself, to see if it were ready should there be need. It was probably only some poor tramp or fisherman who had met with the accident—no matter, he should be tended at Trevlyn, he should lie in its most comfortable guest-chamber, he should have every care that wealth could supply. Monica knew too well the dire results that might follow a slip down those hard, treacherous cliffs not to feel peculiarly tender and solicitous over another victim.

The steady tramp of feet ascending the stairs and approaching the room where she stood, roused Monica to the knowledge that the injured man was not dead, and that they were bringing him up to be tended and nursed as she had directed. The door was pushed open; six men carried in their burden upon an improvised stretcher, and laid it just as it was upon the bed. Monica stepped forward, and then started, growing a little pale; for she recognised in the death-like rigid face before her the well-known countenance of Conrad Fitzgerald.

She could not look without a shudder at that shattered frame, and Wilberforce shook her head gravely, marvelling that he yet breathed. None save professional hands dared touch him, so distorted and dislocated was every limb; and yet by one of those strange coincidences, not altogether uncommon in cases of accident, the beautiful face was entirely untouched, not marred by a scratch or contusion. Death-like unconsciousness had set its seal upon those chiselled, marble features, and had wiped from them every trace of passion or of vice.

Tom Pendrill was amongst them long before they looked for him. He had met the messenger not far from Trevlyn, and had come at once. He turned Monica out of the room with a stern precipitancy that perplexed her somewhat, as did also the expression of his face, which she did not understand. He shut himself up with his patient, retaining the services of Wilberforce and one of the men.

It was two hours before she saw him again.

Monica wandered up and down the dark hall, revolving many things in her mind. What had brought Conrad so suddenly back at this melancholy time of the year? She had believed him abroad with his sister, with whom he seemed to have spent his time since his disappearance early in the spring. What had brought him back now? And why did he so haunt the frowning, treacherous cliffs of Trevlyn? Was he mad? But why did his madness always drive him to this spot? She asked many such questions of herself, but she could answer none of them.

At last Tom came down. His face looked as if carved in flint. She could not read the meaning of his glance.

“Is he dead?” she asked softly.

“He cannot last long. If he has any relations near, they should be telegraphed for.”

“His sister is in Italy, I believe. There is no one else that I know of.”

“Then there is nothing to be done. He is sinking fast. He cannot live many hours. I doubt if he will last the night.”

Monica’s face was pale and grave.

“Poor Conrad!” she said, beneath her breath.

Tom started, and made a quick movement as of repulsion.

“No one could wish him to live,” he began, almost roughly; “he has hardly a whole bone in his body.”

“Is he conscious?”

“No, nor likely to be. It is not at all probable he will ever open his eyes again. He will most likely sink quietly, without a sound or a sign. I have done all I can for him. Somebody must be with him to watch him, I suppose. It can only be a question of hours now.” A dark cloud hung upon the doctor’s brow. His thoughts were preoccupied. Presently he spoke again—a sort of mutter between his teeth.

“He ought not to be allowed to die here—under _this_ roof. It is monstrous—hateful to think of! Nothing can save him. Yet I suppose it would be murder to move him now.”

Monica looked up quickly.

“Move him! Tom, what are you thinking of?”

“I know it cannot be done,” was the answer, spoken in a stern, dogged tone. “Yet I repeat what I said before: he ought not to be under this roof.”

There was a gentle reproach in the look that Monica bent upon him.

“My husband’s roof and mine will always be a refuge for any whose need is as sore as his. Sometimes I think, Tom, that you are the very hardest man I ever met. His life, I know, is terribly stained; yet it is not for us to judge him.”

It seemed as if Tom were agitated. He gave no outward sign, but his face was pale, his manner curiously harsh and peremptory.

“You do not know,” he said. “Your husband——”

She stopped him by a gesture.

“My husband would be the first to bid me return good for evil. You know Randolph very little if you do not know that. Conrad is dying, and death wipes out much. He is about to answer for his life to a higher tribunal than ours. Ah! let us not condemn him harshly. Have we not all our sins upon our heads? When my turn comes to answer for mine, let me not have this one added—that I hardened my heart against the dying, and denied the help and succour mutely asked at the last hour.”

“Monica,” said Tom, with one of those swift changes that marked his manner when he was deeply moved, “were I worthy, I would kiss the hem of your garment. As it is, I can only say farewell. God be with you!”

He was gone before she could open her lips again. She stood in a sort of dream, feeling as if some strange thing were about to happen to her.

Night fell upon the castle and its inhabitants, but Monica could not sleep. If ever she closed her eyes in momentary slumber, the same vivid dream recurred again and again, till she was oppressed and exhausted by the effort to escape from it. It was Conrad, always Conrad, begging, praying, beseeching her to come. Sometimes it seemed as if his shadowy form stood beside her, wildly praying the same thing—to come to him—to come before it was too late.

At last she could stand it no longer. She rose and dressed. The clock in the tower struck four. She knew she could sleep no more that night. Why should she not take the watch beside the unconscious dying man, and let the faithful Wilberforce get some rest?

She stole noiselessly to the sick room. There had been no change in the patient’s state. He lived, but could hardly live much longer. Wilberforce would fain have stayed, but Monica dismissed her quietly and firmly, preferring to keep her watch alone.

Profound silence reigned in the great house—silence only broken from time to time by the reverberating strokes of the clock in the tower, or by the sudden sinking of the coal in the grate and the quiet fall of the cinders. There was something inexpressibly solemn in the time, the place, and the office thus undertaken by Monica.

Conrad lay dying—Conrad, once her friend and playmate, then her bitterest, cruellest foe, now?—ah yes, what now?—she asked that question many times of herself. What strange, mysterious power is that of death! How it blots out all hatred, anger, bitterness, and distrust, and leaves in its place a sort of tender, mournful compassion. Who can look upon the face of the dead, and cherish hard thoughts of him that is gone?

Not Monica, at least. Conrad had been to her as the evil genius of one crisis of her life—of more had she but known it. She had said in her heart that she could never forgive him, that she would never voluntarily look upon his face again, and yet here he lay dying beneath her roof, and she was with him. She could not, when it came to the point, leave him to die alone, with only a stranger beside him. He might never know, his eyes would probably never open to the light of this world again; but she should know, and in years to come, when time should, even more than now, have softened all things to her, she knew that she should be glad to think she had shown mercy and compassion towards one in death, who had shown himself in life her bitterest foe.

Very solemn thoughts filled her mind as she sat in that quiet room, in which a strong young life was quickly ebbing away. Would the sin-stained soul pass into the shadowy land of the hereafter in silence and darkness, without one moment for preparation—perhaps for repentance? Would some slight gleam of consciousness be granted? would it be vouchsafed to him to wake once more in this world, to give some sign to the earnest, silent watcher whether he had tried to make his peace with God before he was called to his last account?

The lamp burned low—flickered in its socket. That strange blue _film_, the first forerunner of the coming day, stole solemnly into that quiet room. Suddenly Monica became aware that Conrad’s eyes were open, and fixed intently upon her face. She rose and stood beside him.

“You are here?” he said, in a strange low voice. “I felt that you would hear me call—and would come. I knew I could not—die—till I had told you all.”

She did not know how far he was conscious. His words were strange, but his eye was calm and quiet. He took the stimulant she held to his lips. It gave him an access of strength.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“At Trevlyn.”

A strange look flitted over his face.

“Ah! I remember now—I fell. And I have been brought to Trevlyn—to die—and you, Monica, are with me. It is well.”

She hardly knew what to say, or how to answer the awed look in those dying eyes. He bent a keen glance upon her.

“Will it be soon?” he asked; and she knew that the “it” meant death. She could not deceive him. She bent her head in assent, as she said:

“Very soon, I think.”

His eyes never left her face. His own face moved not a muscle, but its expression changed moment by moment in a way she could not understand.

“There is not much time left, Monica. Sit down by me where I can see you. I must make a confession to you before I die.”

“Not to me, Conrad,” said Monica gently. “Confess your sins to our Father in Heaven. He alone can grant forgiveness; and His mercies are very great.”

“Forgiveness!” the word was spoken with an intensity of bitterness that startled Monica. The horror was deepening each moment in his eyes. She began to feel that it was reflected in her own. What did it all mean?

“God is very merciful,” she said gently, commanding herself so that he should not see her agitation.

“You do not know,” he interrupted almost fiercely. “Wait till I have told you all.”

“Why should you tell me, Conrad? I know much of your past life. I know that you have sinned. Ask God’s forgiveness before it is too late. It is against Him, not me, that you have sinned.”

“Against Him _and_ you,” he answered with a grave intensity of manner that plainly showed him master of his faculties. “Listen to me, Monica—you shall listen! I cannot carry the guilty secret to the grave. Death looks me in the face—he holds me by the hand, but he will not let me leave this world till I have told you all.”

A sort of horror fell upon Monica. She neither spoke nor moved.

“Monica, turn your face this way. I want to see it. I must see it. You remember the night, a year ago, when—your husband—went away?”

She bent her head in silence.

“Did you know that I was there—in the boat with him?”

She raised her head, and looked at him speechlessly.