CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
CONRAD FITZGERALD.
Whether Monica would ever have thawed towards him of her own free will Randolph Trevlyn could not tell; but during a sharp attack of illness that prostrated Arthur at this juncture, he was so much in the sick boy’s room, and so kind and patient and helpful there, that the girl’s coldness began insensibly to melt; and before the attack had passed, he felt that if she did not share her brother’s liking for him, at least the old antipathy, hostility, had somewhat abated.
They rode out together sometimes now, exploring the country round the Castle, or galloping over the wind-swept moors. Monica was generally silent, always reserved and unapproachable, and yet he felt that a certain vantage-ground had been gained, and he did not intend to allow it to slip away. Unconsciously almost to himself, the wish had grown to win the heart of this wild, beautiful, lonely young creature. Yet the charm of her solitary tamelessness was so great that he hardly wished the spell to be too suddenly broken. He could not picture Monica other than she was—and yet he was growing to love her with every fibre of his being.
But fortune was not kind to Randolph, as an incident that quickly followed showed him.
He and Monica had ridden one day across a wild sweep of trackless moorland, when they came in sight of a picturesque Elizabethan house, in a decidedly dilapidated condition, whose red brick walls and mullioned windows took Randolph’s fancy. He asked who lived there.
“No one now,” answered Monica, with a touch as of regret in her voice; “no one has lived there for years and years. Once it was such a bright, happy home—we used to play there so often, Arthur and I, when we were children; but the master died, the children were taken away, and the house was shut up. That was ten years ago. I have never been there since.”
“Who is the owner? Does he never reside here now?”
“He has never been back. I believe he is not rich, and could not keep up the place. He must be about five-and-twenty by this time. He is Sir Conrad Fitzgerald—he was such a nice boy when I used to play with him.”
Randolph started suddenly; he controlled himself in a moment, but Monica’s eyes were very quick, and she had seen the instinctive recoil at the sound of the name.