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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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.