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.