Chapter III: Part 3

“I was there,” he said, “but nobody knew, nobody suspected. I was on the shore before you. I saw you cling to him. I heard every word that passed. I think a demon entered into my soul as you kissed each other that night. ‘Kiss her!’ I said, ‘kiss her—you shall never kiss her again!’ Monica, I think sometimes I am mad—I was mad, possessed, that night. I had no will, no power to resist the evil spirit within me. He went down to the boat. I followed. In the black darkness nobody saw me swing myself in. You know the story the men told when they came back—it was all true enough. The crew of the sinking vessel had been rescued. Your husband left the boat to help the little lad. I followed him, unknown to all. He had already handed the boy into the boat when I came stealthily up to him; the boat had swung round, and for a moment was lost in darkness before it could be brought up again. This was my chance. It was pitchy dark, and he did not see me, though I was close beside him. I had the great boat-hook in my hand; we were both sinking with the sinking vessel. I steadied myself, and brought the metal end of the weapon with all my strength upon his head. He sank without a cry. I saw his head, covered with blood, and his glassy eyes above the water for a moment—the sight has haunted me ever since—then I sprang into the boat. ‘All right!’ I shouted, and the men pulled off with a will, without a suspicion or a doubt. Almost before the boat reached the shore I sprang out, and vanished in the darkness before any one had seen me. My vow of vengeance was fulfilled. I murdered your husband Monica—do you understand?—I murdered him in cold blood! What have you to say to me?”

She sat still as a marble statue, her hands closely locked together. She spoke no word.

“I thought revenge would be sweet; but it has been bitter—bitter—bitter! I have known no peace night or day. I have been ceaselessly haunted by the sight of that ghastly face—ah, I see it now! Every time I lie down to sleep I am doomed to do that hideous deed again. I have fled time after time from the scene of my crime, only to be dragged back by a power I cannot resist. I knew that a terrible retribution would come; yet I could not keep away. And now—yes, it has come—more terrible than ever I pictured. I am dying—in his house—and you—his wife—are watching over me. Ah, it is frightful! Is there forgiveness with God for sin like mine? You say His mercies are great. Can they cover this hideous deed? Monica, can _you_ forgive?”

He spoke with the wild, passionate appeal of despair. The anguish and remorse in his face were terrible to see; but Monica did not speak. She sat rigid and still, as pale as death, her eyes glowing like living fire in the wild conflict of her feelings. This was terrible—too terrible to be borne.

“Monica, I am dying—dying! The shadows are closing round me. Ah, do not turn away! It is all so dark; if you desert me I am lost indeed! If you were dying you would understand. Monica, you say God is good—merciful. I have asked His pardon again and again for this black sin, and even as I pray it seems as if you—your pale, still face—rises ever between me and the forgiveness I crave. I read by this token that to you I must confess this blackest sin; of you I must ask pardon too. I have repented. I do repent. I would give my life to call him back. Monica, forgive—forgive! Have mercy upon a dying man. As you will one day ask pardon at God’s hands even for your blameless life, give me your pardon ere I die!”

Who shall estimate the struggle that raged in Monica’s soul during the brief moments that followed this appeal—moments that to her were like hours, years, for the concentrated passion of feeling that surged through them? She felt as if she had grown sensibly older, ere, white and shaken by the conflict, she won the victory over herself.

She rose and stood beside him.

“Conrad, I forgive you. May God forgive you as I do.”

A sudden light flashed into his dim eyes. The awful, unspeakable horror passed slowly away. The deep darkness lifted a little—a very little—and Monica saw that it was so.

“I think—you have—saved me,” he whispered, whilst the death damp gathered on his brow. “Monica, you will have your reward for this—I know it—I feel it. Ah! is this death? Monica—it is coming—teach me to pray—I cannot—I have forgotten—help me!”

“I will help you, Conrad. Say it after me. ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven; Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses; As we forgive’——”

“‘As we forgive’——” Conrad broke off suddenly; a strange look of gladness, of relief, of comprehension, flashing over the face that had been so full of terror and anguish. “‘As we forgive’—and you have forgiven—then it may be that He will forgive too. I could not believe it before—now I can—God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Those were his last words. Already his eyes were glazing. The hush as of the shadow of death was filling that dim room. Monica knelt beside the bed, a sense of deep awe upon her, praying with all the strength of her pure soul for the guilty, erring man—her husband’s murderer—dying beneath his roof.

And as she thus knelt and prayed, a sudden sense of her husband’s presence filled all her soul with an inexpressible, indescribable thrill of mingled rapture and awe. She trembled, and her heart beat thick and fast; whether she were in the spirit or out of the spirit she did not know. And then—in deep immeasurable distance, far, far away, and yet distinctly, sweetly clear—unmistakable—the sound of a voice—Randolph’s voice—thrilling through infinity of space:

“Monica! Monica! My wife!”

She started to her feet, quivering in every limb. Conrad’s eyes were fixed upon her with an inexplicable look of joy. Had he heard it too? What did it mean—that strange cry from the spirit world in this hour of death and dawn?

She leant over the dying man.

“Conrad,” she said, in a voice that was full of an emotion too deep for any but the simplest of words, “I forgive you—so does Randolph; and I think God has forgiven you too.”

The clear radiance of another day was shining upon the earth as the troubled, erring spirit was set free, and passed away into the great hereafter, whose secrets shall be read in God’s good time, when all but His Word shall have passed away.

Let us not judge him—for is there not joy with the angels in heaven over one sinner that repenteth?

Yes, all was over now: all the weary warfare of sin and strife; and with a calm majesty in death, that the beautiful face had never worn in life, Conrad Fitzgerald lay dead in Castle Trevlyn.

CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

LORD HADDON.

“And you forgave him, Monica, you forgave him? The man who had killed your husband?”

It was Beatrice who spoke, and she spoke with a sort of horror in her tone. Tom stood a little apart in the recess of the window, a heavy cloud upon his brow. Lord Haddon was leaning with averted face upon the high carved mantel-shelf.

They had all come over early to Trevlyn to hear the fate of the hapless man who had died in the night. Beatrice felt an unquenchable longing to know if he had spoken before he died—if by chance the terrible secret had escaped in delirium from his lips; and she had insisted on coming with her husband. Her brother, who had arrived unexpectedly the previous evening, had made one of the party. He was hungering for another sight of Monica, and Trevlyn seemed to draw him like a magnet.

Monica’s face had told a tale of its own when she had first appeared; and the whispered question on Beatrice’s lips:

“Did he speak, Monica? Did he say anything?” elicited a reply that led to explanations on both sides, rendering further reserve needless; and Monica told her tale with the quiet calmness of one who has too lately passed through some great mental conflict to be easily disturbed again.

But Beatrice, fiery, impetuous Beatrice, could not understand this calm. She was shaken by a tempest of excitement and wrath.

“You forgave him, Monica? Ah! how could you? Randolph’s murderer!”

“Yes, I forgave him.”

“You should not! You should not! It was not—it could not be right! Monica, I cannot understand you. I think you are made of stone!”

She said nothing; she smiled. That smile was only seen by Haddon. It thrilled him to his heart’s core.

“How came you to be with him at all?” said Tom, almost sternly. “It was not your duty to be there. It was no fit place for you.”

“I think my place is where there is sorrow and need and loneliness,” answered Monica, very gently. “He needed me—and I came to him.”

“He sent for you?”

“I think he did.”

“But you said——”

Monica lifted her hand; she rose to her feet, passing her hand across her brow.

“You would not understand, dear. There are some things, Beatrice, that you are very slow to learn. You know something of the mysteries of life, but you do not understand anything of those deeper mysteries of death. I have forgiven a dying man, who prayed forgiveness with his latest breath—and you look at me with horror.”

Beatrice gazed at Monica, but yet would not yield her point.

“Mercy can be carried too far——” but she could not say more, for the look upon Monica’s face brought a sudden sense of choking that would have made her voice falter had she attempted to proceed. Her brother’s murmured words, therefore, were now distinctly heard.

“Not in God’s sight, perhaps.”

Monica turned to him with a swift gesture inexpressibly sweet.

“Ah! you understand,” she said simply. “I am glad you have come just now, Haddon. I shall want help. Will you give it me?”

“I will do anything for you, and esteem it an honour.”

She looked at him steadily.

“Even if it is for one who—for the one who lies upstairs now—dead?”

Haddon bent his head.

“Even for him—at your bidding.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I will take you home now, Beatrice,” said Tom, curtly. “We are not wanted here.”

Monica looked questioningly at him, as she gave him her hand, to see what this abruptness might signify. He returned her gaze with equal intensity.

“I believe you are an angel, Monica,” he said, lifting her hand for a moment to his lips; “but there are moments when fallen mortals like ourselves feel the angelic presence a little overpowering.”

Monica, as she had said, wanted the help of some man of business, as there was a good deal to be done in connection with Conrad’s sudden death: a good many trying formalities to be gone through, as well as much correspondence, and in Lord Haddon she found an able and willing assistant.

He saw much of Monica in those days. He was often at Trevlyn—hardly a day passed without his riding or driving across on some errand—and she was often at St. Maws herself, for Beatrice’s momentary flash of anger had been rapidly quenched in deep contrition and humility; and both she and her husband treated Monica with the sort of reverential tenderness that seemed to meet her now on all hands.

Lord Haddon watched her day by day, wondering if ever he should dare to breathe a word of the hopes that filled his heart, reading in her calm face and in the sisterly gentleness and fondness with which she treated him, how little conscious she was of the purpose that possessed his soul. Sometimes he paused and shrank from troubling the still waters of their sweet, calm friendship, but then again the thought of leaving her in her loneliness and isolation seemed too sad and mournful, if by any devotion and love he could lighten the burden of her sorrow, and bring back something of the lost happiness into her life. Haddon was very humble, very self-distrustful; he did not expect to accomplish much, but he felt that he would gladly lay down his life, if by that act he could do anything to comfort her. To die for her would, however, be purposeless: the next thing was to try and live for her.

And so one day, as they paced the lonely shore together, on a chill cloudy winter’s afternoon, he put his fate to the touch.

She had noticed his silence—his abstraction: he had not been quite himself all day. Presently they reached a sheltered nook amongst some rocks not far from the water’s edge, and she sat down, motioning him to do the same. She looked at him with gentle, friendly concern.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked. “Have you something on your mind?”

He turned his head, looked into her eyes, and answered:

“Yes.”

“Can I help you?” she continued, in the same sweet way. “You help me so often, that it is my turn to help you now if I can.”

He looked with a glance she could not altogether understand.

“Monica,” he said, “may I speak to you?—may I tell you something? I have tried to do so before, and have failed; but I ought not to go on longer without speaking. Have I your permission to tell you what is on my mind?”

He did not often call her by her Christian name: only in moments of excitement, when his soul was stirred within him. The unconscious way in which it dropped now from his lips told that he was deeply moved. A sort of vague uneasiness arose within her, but she looked into his troubled, resolute face, and answered:

“Tell me if you wish it, Haddon”—although she shrank, without knowing why, from the confession she was to hear.

“Monica,” he said, not looking at her, but out over the sea, and speaking with a manly resolution and fluency unusual with him, the outcome of a very earnest purpose, “I am going to speak to you at last, and I must ask you beforehand to pardon my presumption, of which I am as well aware as you can ever be. Monica, I think that no woman in the wide world is like you. I have thought so ever since I saw you first, in your bridal robes, standing beside Randolph in that little church over yonder. When I saw you then—nay, pardon me if I pain you; I should not have recalled the memory, and yet I cannot help it—I said within myself that you were one to be worshipped with the truest devotion of a man’s heart; and the more I saw of you in later life, the deeper did that feeling sink into my soul. He, your husband, had been as a brother to me, and to feel that I was thus brought near to you, admitted to friendship and to confidence, was a source of keen pleasure such as I can ill describe. You did not know your power over me, Monica. I hardly knew it myself; but I think I would at any time have laid down my life either for him or for you. I know I would that fatal night—but I must not pain you more. When I awoke, Monica, from that long fever, to find you watching beside me, to hear that he, my friend, was dead, and you left all alone in your desolation—Monica, Monica, how can I hope to express to you what I felt? It is not treachery to his memory—believe me, it is not. If I could call him back, ah! how gladly would I do it!—at the cost of my life if need be—but that can never, never be! I know I can never fill _his_ place. I know I am utterly unworthy of the boon I ask; but if a life-long devotion, if a love that will never change nor falter, if the ceaseless care of one, who is yours wholly and entirely, can ever help to fill the blank, can in ever so small a degree make up to you for that one irretrievable loss, believe me, it will be the greatest happiness I can ever know. Monica, need I say more? Have I said too much? I only ask leave to watch over you, to comfort you, to love you; I ask nothing for myself—only the right to do this. Can you not give it to me? God helping me, you shall never repent it if you do.”

A long pause followed this confession—this appeal. Monica’s face had expressed many fluctuating feelings as he had proceeded with his speech. Now it was full of a sort of divine compassion and tenderness: a look sometimes seen in a pictured saint or Madonna drawn by a master hand.

“You are so good,” she said, very low; “so very, very good; and it grieves me so sadly to give you pain.”

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes darkened with sudden sorrow.

“I have spoken too soon,” he said, in the same gentle, self-contained way. “I have tried to be patient, but seeing you lonely and sad makes it so hard. I should have waited longer—it is only a year now since. Monica, do not think me hard or callous to say it, but time is a great softener—a great healer. I do not mean that you will ever forget; but years will go by, and you are still quite young, very young to live your life always alone. Think of the years that lie before you. Must they all be spent alone? Monica, do not answer me yet; but if in time to come—if you want a friend, a helper—let me—can you think of me? Ah! how can I say it? Can I ever be more to you than I am now? You understand: you have only to call me, to command me—I will come.”

He spoke with some agitation now, but it was quickly subdued. It seemed as if he would have left her, but she laid her hand upon his arm and detained him.

“Haddon,” she said, softly, “I am lonely and I do want a friend. You have been a friend to me always; I trust and love you as a brother. May I not do so always? Can you not be content with that? Must it end with us, that love and trust? I should miss it sorely if it were withdrawn.”

Her sweet, pleading face was turned towards him. There was a sort of struggle in the young man’s mind: then he answered quietly:

“It shall be so, if you wish it,” he said. “My chiefest wish is for your happiness. But——”

She checked him by a look.

“Haddon, I am Randolph’s wife!”

His eyes gave the reply his tongue would never have uttered. She answered as if he had spoken.

“Yes, he is dead. Did you think that made any difference? Ah, you do not understand. When I gave myself to Randolph, I gave myself for ever—not for a time only but for always. He is my husband. I am his wife. Nothing can change that.”

“Not even death?”

The words were a mere whisper; yet she heard them. It seemed as if a sudden ray of light shone upon the face she turned towards him. He was awed; he watched her in mute silence.

“Ah! no,” she said, very softly, “not death—death least of all. Death can only divide us, it cannot touch our love. Ah! you do not know, you do not understand. How can I make it clear to you? Love is like nothing else in the world—it is us, our very selves. _Somewhere_——” Monica clasped her hands together, and stretched them out before her towards the eternal ocean, with a gesture more eloquent than any words, whilst the light upon her face deepened in intensity every moment as her eyes fixed themselves upon the far horizon. “_Somewhere_ he is waiting for me to come to him—he, my husband, my love; and though he may not come back to me, I shall go to him in God’s good time, and when I join him in the great, eternal home, I must go to him as he left me—with nothing between us and our love; and there will be no parting there, no more death, and no more sea.”

Her words died away in silence; but her parted lips, her shining eyes, the light upon her face, spoke an eloquent language of their own. Her companion sat and looked at her in mute, breathless silence, not unmixed with awe.

He knew his cause was lost. He knew she could never, never be his; yet, strange to say, he was not saddened or cast down, for by this revelation of her innermost heart he felt himself uplifted and ennobled. His idol was not shattered. Monica was, as ever, enshrined in his heart—the one ideal woman to be worshipped, reverenced, adored. Even in this supreme hour of his life, when the airy fabric of his dreams was crumbling into dust about him, he had a perception that perhaps even thus it was best. He never could be worthy of her, and now he might still call himself her friend; had she not said so herself?

There was a long, long silence between them. Then he moved, kneeling on one knee before her, and taking her hand in his.

“Monica,” he said, “I understand now. I shall never trouble you again. You have judged well, very well; it is like you, and that is enough. But before I go may I crave one boon?”

“And that is——?”

“That you forget all that I have said, all the wild, foolish words that I have spoken; and let me keep my old place—as your brother and friend.”

She looked at him with her own gentle smile.

“I wish for nothing better,” she answered. “I cannot afford to lose my friend.”

He pressed her hand for one moment to his lips, and was gone without another word.

Tears slowly welled up in Monica’s eyes as she rose at last, and stood looking out over the vast waste of heaving grey sea—sad, colourless, troubled.

“Like my life,” she said softly to herself. And yet she had just put away a love that might at least have cast a glow upon it, and gilded its dim edges.

She stretched out her hand with a sort of mute gesture of entreaty.

“Ah! Randolph, husband, come back to me! I am so lonely, so desolate!”

Even as she spoke, the setting sun, as it touched the horizon, broke through the bank of cloud which had veiled it all the day, and flooded the sea as with liquid gold—that cold grey sea that she had just been likening to her own future life.

She could not help an involuntary start.

“Is it an omen?” she asked; and despite the heavy load at her heart, she went home somewhat comforted.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.

CHRISTMAS.

It was Christmas Eve; the light was just beginning to wane, and Monica’s work was done at last. She was free now until the arrival of her guests—the Pendrills and Lord Haddon—should give her new occupation in hospitable care for them.

Monica had been too busy for thoughts of self to intrude often upon her during these past days. She wished to be busy; she tried to occupy herself from morning to night, for she found that the aching hunger of her heart was more eased by loving deeds of mercy and kindness than in any other way—self more fully lost in ceaseless care for others. But when all was done, every single thing disposed of, nothing more left to think of or to accomplish; then the inevitable reaction set in, and with a heart aching to pain, almost to despair, Monica entered the music-room, and sat down to her organ.

She played with a sort of passionate appeal that was infinitely pathetic, had any one been there to hear; she threw all the yearning sadness of her soul into her organ, and it seemed to answer her back with a promise of strong sympathy and consolation. Insensibly she was soothed by the sweet sounds she evoked. She fell into a dreamy mood, playing softly in a minor key, so softly that through the door that stood ajar, she became aware of a slight subdued tumult in the hall without, to which she gave but a dreamy attention at first.

The bell had pealed sharply, steps had crossed the hall, the door had been opened, and then had followed the tumultuous sounds expressive of astonishment that roused Monica from her dreamy reverie. She supposed the party from St. Maws had arrived somewhat before the expected time, and rose, and had made a few steps forward when she suddenly stopped short and stood motionless—spell-bound—what was it she had heard?—only the sound of a voice—a man’s voice.

“Where is your mistress?”

The words were uttered in a clear, deep, ringing tone, that seemed to her to waken every echo in the castle into wild surging life. The very air throbbed and palpitated around her—her temples seemed as if they would burst. What was the meaning of that sound—that wild tumult of voices? Why did she stand as if carved in stone, growing white to the very lips, whilst thrill upon thrill ran through her frame, and her heart beat to suffocation? What did it all portend? Whose was the voice she had just heard—that voice from the dead? _Who_ was it that stood in the hall without?

The door was flung open. A tall, dark figure stood in the dim light.

“Monica!”

Monica neither spoke nor moved. The cry of awe and of rapture that rose from her heart could not find voice in which to utter itself—but what matter? She was in her husband’s arms. Her head lay upon his breast. His lips were pressed to her cold face in the kisses she had never thought to feel again. Randolph had come back. She could not speak. She had no will to try and frame a single word. He held her in his arms; he strained her ever closer and closer. She felt the tumultuous beating of his heart as she lay in his arms, powerless to move or think. She heard his murmured words, broken and hoarse with the passionate feeling of that supreme moment.

“My wife! Monica! My wife!”

And then for a time she knew no more. Sight and hearing alike failed her; it seemed as if a slumber from heaven itself sealed her eyes and stole away her senses.

When she came to herself she was on a sofa in her own room, and Randolph was kneeling beside her. She did not start to see him there. For a moment it seemed as if he had never left her. She smiled her own sweet smile.

“Randolph! Have I been asleep—dreaming?”

He took her hands in his, and bent to kiss her lips.

“It has been a long dream, my Monica, and a dark one; but it is over at last. My darling, my darling! God grant I may not be dreaming now!”

She smiled like a tired child. She had a perception that something overpoweringly strange and sudden had happened, but she did not want to rouse herself just yet to think what it must all mean.

Two hours later, in the great drawing-room ablaze with light, Monica and Randolph stood together to welcome their guests. She had laid aside her mournful widow’s garb, and was arrayed in her shimmering bridal robes. Ah, how lovely she was in her husband’s eyes as she stood beside him now! Perhaps never in all her life had she looked more exquisitely fair. Happiness had lighted her beautiful eyes, and had brought the rose back to her pale cheeks: she was glorified—transfigured—a vision of radiant beauty.

He had changed but slightly during his mysterious year of absence. There were a few lines upon his face that had not been there of old: he looked like a man who had been through some ordeal, whether mental or physical it would be less easy to tell; but the same joy and rapture that emanated, as it were, from Monica was reflected in his face likewise, and only a keen eye could read to-night the traces of pain or of sorrow in that strong, proud, manly countenance.

Monica looked at him suddenly, the flush deepening in her cheeks.

“Hush! They are coming!” she said, and waited breathlessly.

The door opened, admitting Mrs. Pendrill, Beatrice, and Tom. There was a pause—a brief, intense silence, during which the fall of a pin might have been heard, and then, with one long, low cry, half-sobbing, half-laughing, Beatrice rushed across the room, and flung herself upon Randolph.

Monica went straight up to Mrs. Pendrill, and put her arms about her neck.

“Aunt Elizabeth, he has come home,” she said, in a voice that shook a little with the tumult of her happiness. “He has just come home—this very day—Randolph—my husband. Help me to believe it. You must help me to bear this—as you helped me to bear the other.”

Tom had by this time grasped Randolph by the hand; but neither trusted his own voice. They were glad that Beatrice covered their silence by her incoherent exclamations of rapture, and by the flow of questions no one attempted to answer.

It was all too like a dream for anyone to recollect very clearly what happened. Raymond and Haddon came in almost at once, new greetings had to be gone through. How the dinner passed off that night no one afterwards remembered. There was a deep sense of thankfulness and joy in every heart; yet of words there were few. But when gathered round the fire later on in the evening, when they had grown used to the presence amongst them of one whom they had mourned as dead for more than a year, Randolph was called upon to tell his tale, which was listened to in breathless silence.

“I will tell you all I can about it; but there are points yet where my memory fails me, where I have but little idea what happened. I have a dim recollection of the night of the wreck, and of leaving the boat; but I must have received a heavy blow on the head, the doctors tell me, and I suppose I sank, and the men could not find me. But I was entangled, it seems, in the rigging of a floating spar, and must have been carried thus many miles; for I was picked up by an ocean steamer bound for Australia, which had been driven somewhat out of its course by the gale. It was not supposed that I could live after so many hours’ exposure. I was quite unconscious, and remained so for a very long time. There was nothing upon me by which I could be identified, and of course I could give no account of myself. On board the boat were a kind-hearted wealthy Australian couple, who had lately lost an only son, to whom they fancied I bore some slight resemblance. Perhaps for this cause, perhaps from true kindness of heart, they at once took me under their special care and protection. There was plenty of space on board the vessel, and they looked after me as if I had indeed been their son. They would not hear of my being left behind in hospital on the way out. They took me under their protection until I should be able to give an account of myself.

“Of course I knew nothing about all this. I was lying dangerously ill of brain fever all the while, not knowing where I was, or what was happening. When we reached Melbourne at last, and I was conveyed to their luxurious house on the outskirts of the town, I was still in the same state, relapse following relapse, every time till I gained a little ground, till for months my life was despaired of. I was either raving in delirium, or lying in a sort of unconscious stupor, and without all the skill and care lavished upon me, I suppose I must have died. But I did not die. Gradually, very gradually, the fever abated, and I began to come to myself: that is to say, I began to know the faces around me and to recognise my surroundings; but for myself, I knew no more who I was, nor whence I had come, than the infant just born into the world. My memory had gone, had been wiped clean away; I had no idea of my own identity, no recollection of the past. The very effort to remember brought on such pain and distress that I was imperatively commanded to relinquish the attempt. Gradually some things came back to my mind: I could read, write, understand the foreign tongues I had mastered, and the sciences I had studied in past days. As my health slowly improved this kind of knowledge came back spontaneously and without effort; but my personal history was as a blank wall, against which I flung myself in vain. It would yield to no efforts of mine. Distressed and confused, I was obliged to give up, and wait with what patience I might for the realisation of the hope held out cheerfully by the clever doctor who attended me. He maintained that if I would but have patience, some strong association of ideas would some day bring all back in a flash, and meantime all I had to do was to get strong and well, so as to be ready for action when that day should come. I was restless sometimes, but less so than one would fancy, for the blank was too complete to be distressing. My good friends and protectors were unspeakably kind and good, and did everything in their power to ensure my mental and physical well-being; I recovered my health rapidly, soon my memory was to come back too.”

Randolph passed his hand across his eyes. No one spoke, every eye was fixed upon his face.

“It did so very strangely: it was one hot afternoon in November—our summer, you know”—he named the date and the hour, and Monica heard it with a sudden thrill. Allowing for the discrepancy of time, it was during the moments that she watched by Conrad Fitzgerald’s dying bed that her husband’s memory was given back to him.

“I was looking over some old English newspapers, idly, purposelessly, when I came upon a detailed account of the wreck, and of my own supposed death. As I read—I cannot describe what it was like—my memory came back to me in a great flood, like overwhelming waves. It seemed, Monica, as if my spirit were carried on wings to Trevlyn, as if I were hovering over you in some mysterious way impossible to describe. I called your name aloud. I knew that I was close to you, at Trevlyn—it is useless to attempt to define what I felt. When I came to myself they told me I had fainted; but that was not so. I had been on a journey, that is all, and had returned. My memory was restored from that hour, clearly and distinctly; the doctor thought there might be lapses, that I might never be the same man again as I had been once; but I have felt no ill effects since. Little more remains to be told. My first instinct was to telegraph; but not knowing what had happened in my absence, knowing I must long have been given up for lost, I was afraid to do so, lest hopeless confusion should result. Instead, I took the first home-bound steamer, and reached London late last night. I found out at the house there where Monica was, and came on here by the first train. I have come back home to spend my Christmas with you.”

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND.

THE LAST.

“Monica, I could not tell you last night—it was all so sudden, so wonderful—but I think you know, without any words of mine, how glad, how thankful, I am.”

It was Haddon who spoke, spoke with a glad, frank, joyous sincerity, that beamed in his eye and sounded in every tone of his voice. Monica gave him both her hands, looking up into his face with her sweetest smile.

“I know, Haddon; I know. I am sure of it. Is he not almost a brother to you?—and are you not the best of brothers to me?”

“At least I will try to be,” he answered gladly. “I cannot tell you how happy this has made me.”

She was glad, too: glad to see him so happy, so heart-whole. He had loved her with the loyal love of a devoted chivalrous knight, had loved her for her sorrow and her loneliness; but she was comforted now, and he was able to rejoice with her. It was all very good—just as she would have it.

Ah! what a day of joy and thanksgiving it was! How Monica’s heart beat as she knelt by her husband’s side that glad Christmas morning in the little cliff church, when, in the pause just before the General Thanksgiving, the grey-headed clergyman, with a little quiver in his voice, announced that Randolph Trevlyn desired to return thanks to Almighty God for preservation from great perils, and for restoration to his home.

Her voice faltered in the familiar words, and many suppressed sobs were heard in the little building, but they were sobs of joy and gratitude, and tears of healing and of happiness stole down Monica’s cheeks. It was like some beautiful dream, and yet too sweet not to be true.

In the afternoon Monica and Randolph went out alone together; first into the whispering pine woods, and then out upon the breezy cliff, hard beneath their feet with the winter’s frost.

He let her lead him whither she would. He had no thought to spare for aught beside herself. They were together once again. What more could they need?

But Monica had an object in view; and as they walked, engrossed in each other, in sweet communion of soul and interchange of thought, or the almost sweeter silence of perfect peace and tranquillity, she led him once more towards the little cliff church; though only when she was unlatching the gate to enter the quiet grave-yard did he arouse to the sense of their surroundings.

“Why, Monica,” he said, “why have you brought me here? We are too late for service.”

“I know,” she answered; “but come. I want to show you something.”

Her face wore an expression he did not understand. He followed her in silence to a secluded corner, where, beneath a dark yew tree, stood a green mound, at the head of which a wooden cross had been temporarily erected.

Randolph read the letters it bore:

“C. F.,” followed by a date, and beneath, the simple, familiar words—

“_Requiescat in pace._”

Strange, perhaps, that Monica should have cared for this lonely grave, in which was laid to rest one who had, as she believed, robbed her life of all its brightness and joy. Strange that she, in the absence of friend or kinsman, should have charged herself with keeping it, and of erecting there some monument to mark who lay there low. Strange—yet so it was.

Her husband looked at her questioningly.

“Conrad’s grave—yes,” she answered quietly. “Randolph, look at the date.”

He did so, and started a little.

“He died at dawn that day, Randolph. You know what was happening then at the other side of the world?”

There was a strange look of awe upon her face as she spoke, which was reflected in his also. She came and stood close beside him.

“Randolph, do you know that he was there—that night?—that he tried to kill you?”

He had taken off his hat as he stood beside the grave, with the instinctive reverence for the dead—even though it be a dead foe—characteristic of a noble mind. Now he passed his hand across his brow and through his thick dark hair.

“I thought that was a delusion of fever—a sort of hideous vision founded on no reality. Monica, was it so?”

“It was.”

“How do you know?”

“I had it from his own lips.”

He gazed at her without speaking; something in her face awed and silenced him.

“Randolph, listen,” she said. “I must tell you all. Six weeks ago, the evening before _that_ day, he was brought, shattered and dying, to Trevlyn; he had fallen from the cliffs, no skill could serve to prolong his life. I knew nothing then—he was profoundly unconscious, yet as the night wore away some strange intuition came upon me that he wanted me, that he was beseeching me to come to him. I went—he was still unconscious. I sent Wilberforce away and watched by him myself. Randolph, at dawn he awoke to consciousness—he told me all his awful tale—he said he had murdered you—I believed it was true. He was dying—dying in darkness and in dread, and he prayed for my forgiveness as if his salvation hung upon it. Randolph, Randolph, how can I tell you?—I cannot, no I cannot—no one could understand,” for a moment she pressed her hand upon her eyes, looking up again in a few seconds with a calm glance that was like a smile. “He was dying, Randolph, and I forgave him—I forgave him freely and fully—and he died in peace. Stop, that is not all. Randolph, as I knelt beside his bed, praying for the sin-stained spirit then taking its flight, I felt that you were with me; I had never before felt the strange overshadowing presence that I did then—you were there, your own self. I heard your voice far away, yet absolutely clear, like a call from some distant, snow-clad mountain-top, infinitely far—‘Monica! Monica! My wife!’ I think Conrad heard it too, for he died with a smile on his lips. Randolph, I am sure that you were with me in that strange, awful hour. I knew it then—I know it better now. Randolph, I think that love is stronger than all else—time, space, death itself. Nothing touched our love. I think it is like eternity.”

A deep look of awe had stamped itself upon Randolph’s face. He put his arm round Monica, and for a very long while they stood thus, neither attempting to speak or to move.

At last he woke from his reverie, and looked down at her with a strange light shining in his eyes.

“And you forgave him, Monica?”

She looked up and met his gaze unfalteringly.

“I forgave him, Randolph; was I wrong?”

He stooped and kissed her.

“My wife, I thank God that you did forgive him. His life was full of sin and sorrow—but at least its end was peace. May God pardon him as you did—as I do.”

There was a strange sweet smile in her eyes as she lifted them to his.

“Ah, Randolph!” she said softly, “I knew you would understand. Oh, my husband, my husband!”

He held her in his arms, and she looked up at him with a sweet, tender smile. Then her eyes wandered dreamily out over the wide sea beneath them.

“There is nothing sad there now, Randolph. It will never separate us again.”

He looked down at her with a world of love in his eyes; yet as they turned away his glance rested for one moment upon the lonely grave he had been brought to see, and lifting his hat once more, he murmured beneath his breath—“Requiescat in pace.”

Then drawing his wife’s hand within his arm, he led her homewards to Trevlyn, whilst the sun set in a blaze of golden glory over the boundless shining sea.

THE END.

Transcriber's Notes

Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_

End of Project Gutenberg's Monica, Volume 3 (of 3), by Evelyn Everett-Green