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.