“Randolph, I cannot! I cannot!” cried Monica, who was now overwrought and agitated to the verge of exhaustion; “I cannot stay here. I cannot go amongst those who have dared to say such things, to believe such things of me. What does it matter what they think, when we are far away? Take me back to Trevlyn, and let us forget it all. Let me go, if only for a week. I have never asked you anything before. Oh! Randolph, do not be so hard! Say that you will take me home!”
“If I loved you less, Monica,” he answered, in a very low, gentle tone, “I should say yes. As it is, I say no. I cannot take you to Trevlyn yet.”
She turned away then, and left him without a word, passing slowly through the brilliantly-lighted room, and up the wide staircase. Randolph sat down and rested his head upon his hand, and a long-drawn sigh rose up from the very depths of his heart. This interview had tried him quite as much as it had done Monica—possibly even more.
“Perhaps, after all, Fitzgerald has revenged himself,” he muttered, “though not in a way he anticipated. Ah, Monica! my fair young wife, why cannot you trust me a little more?”
Monica trusted him far more than he knew. It was not in anger that she had left him. In the depth of her heart she believed that he had judged wisely and well; it was only the wave of home-sickness sweeping over her that had urged her to such passionate pleading. And then his strong, inflexible firmness gave her a curious sense of rest and confidence. She herself was so torn and rent by conflicting emotions, by bewilderment and uncertainty, that his resolute determination and singleness of purpose were as a rock and tower of defence. She had called him cruel in the keen disappointment of the moment, but she knew he was not really so. Home-sick, aching for Trevlyn as she was—irrepressibly as she shrank from the idea of facing those to whom she had given cause to say that she did not love her husband, she felt that his decision was right. It might be hard, but it was necessary, and she would go through her part unflinchingly for his sake. It was the least that she could do to make amends for the unconscious wrong she had done him.
She felt humbled to the very dust, utterly distrustful of herself, and quite unworthy of the gentleness and forbearance her husband showed towards her. How much he must be disappointed in her! How hard he must feel it to have married her out of kindness, and to be treated thus!
She was very quiet and submissive during the days that followed, doing everything he suggested, studying in all things to please him, and to make up for the past. In society she was more bright and less silent than she had been heretofore. She was determined not to appear unhappy. No one should in future have cause to say that her present life was not congenial to her. Certainly, if anyone took the trouble to watch her now, it would easily be seen that she was no longer indifferent to her husband. Her eyes often followed him about when he was absent from her side. She always seemed to know where he was, and to turn to him with a sort of instinctive welcome when he came back to her. This clinging to him was quite unconscious, the natural result of her confidence in his strength and protecting care; but it was visible to one pair of keenly jealous eyes, and Conrad Fitzgerald, when he occasionally found himself in company with Randolph and his wife, watched with a sense of baffled malevolence the failure of his carefully-planned scheme.
People began to talk now of the devotion of Mr. Trevlyn and Lady Monica with as much readiness and carelessness as they had done about their visible estrangement. It takes very little to set idle tongues wagging, and every one admired the bride and liked the bridegroom, so that the good opinion of the world was not difficult to regain.
But Monica’s peace of mind was less easily recovered. At home she was grave and sad, and he thought her cold; and the full and entire reconciliation—of which, indeed, at that time she would have felt quite unworthy—was not to be yet. Each was conscious of deep love on his or her own side, but could not read the heart of the other, and feared to break the existing calm by any attempt to ruffle the surface of the waters.