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.

“Do you know Conrad Fitzgerald?” she asked.

“We have met,” he answered, somewhat grimly. “I do not claim the honour of his acquaintance.”

Monica glanced at him. She saw something in the stern lines of Randolph’s face that told a tale of its own. She was not afraid to state the conclusion she reached by looking at him.

“That means that you have quarrelled,” she said.

“I am not at liberty to explain what it means,” was the answer, spoken with a certain stern gravity, not lost upon Monica. She had never seen her companion look like this before. The strength and resolution of his face compelled a sort of involuntary respect, yet she revolted against hearing the friend and playmate of her childhood tacitly condemned by this stranger.

“I do not like innuendoes, Mr. Trevlyn,” she said. “If you have anything to say against a man I think it is better spoken out.”

“I have nothing at all to say upon the subject of Sir Conrad Fitzgerald,” he answered, quietly.

“Ungenerous! unmanly!” was Monica’s mental comment. “I cannot bear hearing a character hinted away. I loved Conrad once, and he loved me. I do not believe he has done anything for which he should be condemned.”

Randolph thought little of the few chance words respecting Sir Conrad Fitzgerald at the time when they were spoken; but he was destined to think a good deal about that individual before many days had passed.

Finding his way to Arthur’s room towards dusk one day, as he often did, he was surprised to find quite a little group around the glowing fire. Monica and the dogs were objects sufficiently familiar to him by this time, but who was that graceful, fair-haired youth who sat beside the girl, his face turned towards her and away from Randolph, whilst he made some gay, laughing rejoinder to her in a very sweet, musical voice?

Randolph recognised that laugh and that voice with another start of dismay. His face set itself in very stern lines, and he would have withdrawn in silence had he been able to do so unobserved; but Arthur saw him as he moved to go, and cried gladly:

“Oh, here is Randolph—that is right. Our old friend and our new one must be introduced. Sir Conrad Fitzgerald—Mr. Randolph Trevlyn.”

Randolph’s eyes were fixed full upon the face of the younger man as he made the slightest possible inclination of the head. His hand had unconsciously clenched itself in a gesture that was a little significant. Monica’s eyes were fixed upon Conrad. Was it possible that he quailed and flinched a little beneath the steady gaze bent upon him? She did not think so, she was sure it could not be; no, he was only drawing himself up to return that cold salutation with one expressive of sovereign contempt.

Not a word was exchanged between the two men. Randolph sat down beside Arthur, and began to talk to him. Conrad drew nearer to Monica, and entered into a low-toned conversation with her. His voice sounded tender and caressing, and ever and anon such words as these reached young Trevlyn’s ears:

“Do you remember, Monica?”—“Ah, those sweet days of childhood!”—“You have not forgotten?”—“How often have I thought of it all.”

Evidently they were discussing the happy past—the bright days that had been shared by them before the cloud had fallen upon Monica’s life. Randolph could not keep his eyes away from her face. It was lit up with a new expression, half sad, and yet strangely—infinitely sweet. Conrad’s face was very beautiful too, with its delicate, almost effeminate colouring and serious, melancholy blue eyes. He had been a lovely child, and his beauty had not faded with time. It had stood him in good stead in many crises of his life, and was doing so still. There is an irrational association in most minds between beauty and goodness.

But Randolph’s face grew more and more dark as he watched the pair opposite. Old memories were stirring within him, and at last he rose and quitted the room, feeling that he could no longer stand the presence of that man within it, could no longer endure to see him bending over Monica, and talking to her in that soft, caressing way.

Conrad looked after him, a vindictive light in his soft blue eyes. As the door closed he uttered a low laugh.

“What is it?” asked Arthur.

“Oh, nothing. I was only wondering how long he would be able to brazen it out?”

“Brazen what out?”

“Why, sitting there with my eye upon him. Couldn’t you see how restless he got?”

“Restless!” repeated Arthur, quickly. “Why should he be restless?”

Conrad laughed again.

“Never mind, my boy. I bear him no malice. The least said the soonest mended.”

Monica was silent and a little troubled. She liked to understand things plainly. It seemed to her an unnatural thing for two men to be at almost open feud, yet unwilling to say a word as to the cause of their mutual antagonism. She thought that if they met beneath her father’s roof they should be willing to do so as friends.

Her gravity did not escape Conrad’s notice.

“Has he been maligning me already?” he asked, suddenly, with a subdued flash in his eyes.

“No,” answered Monica, with a sort of involuntary coldness. “He has not said a word. I do not think,” she added presently, with a gentle dignity of manner, “that I should listen very readily from the lips of a stranger to stories detrimental to an old companion and playmate, told behind his back.”

Conrad gave her a look of humble gratitude. He would have taken her hand and kissed it had she been anybody else, but somehow, demonstrations of such a kind always seemed impossible where Monica was concerned. Even to him she was decidedly unapproachable.

“It is good indeed of you to say so,” he said; “but, Monica—I may call you Monica still, may I not? as I have always thought of you all these long years—you might hear stories to my detriment that would not be untrue. There have been faults and follies and sins in my past life that I would gladly blot out if I could. I have been wild and reckless often. I lost my parents very young, as you know, and it is hard for a boy without home and home influences to grow up as he should do.” Conrad paused, and then added, with a good deal of feeling: “Monica, can a man do more than repent the past? Can nothing ever wipe away the stain, and give him back his innocence again? Must he always bear about the shadow of sorrow and shame?”

Monica’s face was grave and thoughtful. She shook her head as she replied:

“It is no use coming to me with hard questions, Conrad; I know so little, so very little of the world you live in. Yet it seems to me that it would be hard indeed if repentance did not bring forgiveness in its wake.”

quoted Arthur, lazily. “What is it you have done? Can’t you tell us all the story, and let us judge for ourselves—old friends and playmates as we are?”

“I should like to,” answered Conrad, gently. “Some day I will; but do not let us spoil this first meeting with bitter memories. Let it be enough for me to have come home, and have found my friends unchanged towards me. May I venture still to call you my friends?”

“To be sure,” cried Arthur, readily; but Conrad’s eyes were fixed on Monica’s face; and she saw it, and looked back at him with her steady, inscrutable gaze.

“I do not think I change easily,” she said, with her gentle dignity of manner. “You were my friend and playmate in our happy childhood. I should like to think of you always as a friend.”

“Of course,” put in Arthur, gaily; “of course we are all friends, and you must make friends with Randolph, too. He is such a good fellow.”

“I have no objection at all,” answered Conrad, with a short laugh. “The difficulty, I imagine, will be on his side. Some men never forget or forgive any one who succeeds in finding them out.”

“Oh, we will manage Randolph, never fear. You are ready, then, to make it up if he is?”

“Most certainly,” was the ready answer.

“He is the nobler man of the two,” said Monica to herself—at least her reason and judgment said so; her instinct, oddly enough, spoke in exactly opposite words; but surely it was right to listen first to the voice of reason.

“I say, Randolph,” said Arthur, half an hour later, when the young baronet had taken his departure and the other guest had returned to the invalid’s room. “Conrad is quite willing to make it up with you.”

Randolph’s smile was a little peculiar.

“Sir Conrad Fitzgerald is very kind.”

“Well, you know, it’s always best to make friends, isn’t it? Deadly feuds are a nuisance in these days, don’t you think so?”

Randolph smiled again; but his manner was certainly a little baffling.

“Come now, Randolph,” persisted Arthur, with boyish insistence, “you won’t hang back now that he is ready for the reconciliation. He is the injured party, is he not?”

There was rather a strange light in Randolph’s dark blue eyes. His manner was exceedingly quiet, yet he looked as if he could be a little dangerous.

“Possibly,” was the rather inconclusive answer.

“You know he has come to stay some little time in the neighbourhood, and he will often be here. It will be so awkward if you are at daggers drawn all the time.”

“My dear boy, you need not put yourself about. I will take care that there shall be no annoyance to anybody.”

“You will make friends, then?”

“I will meet Sir Conrad Fitzgerald, whenever he is your father’s guest, with the courtesy due from one man to another, when circumstances bring them together beneath the roof of the same hospitable host. But to take his hand in reconciliation or friendship is a thing that I cannot and will not do. Do you understand now?”

Arthur looked at him intently, as for once Monica was doing also.

“Randolph,” he said, a little inconsequently, “do you know I think I could almost be afraid of you sometimes. I never saw you look before as you looked just then.”

The stern lines on Randolph’s face relaxed a little but he still looked grave and pre-occupied, sitting with his elbow on his knee, leaning forward, and pulling his moustache with an abstracted air.

“You are rather unforgiving too, I think,” pursued the boy. “Conrad admitted he had done wrong, but he is very sorry for the past; and I think it is hard when old offences, repented of, are not consigned to oblivion.”

Randolph was silent.

“Don’t you agree?”

Still only impenetrable silence.

“Come, Randolph, don’t be so mysterious and so revengeful. Let us have the whole story, and judge for ourselves.”

“Excuse me, Arthur; but the life of Sir Conrad Fitzgerald is not one that I choose to discuss. His affairs are no concern of mine, nor, if you will pardon my saying so, any concern of yours, either. You are at liberty to renew past friendship with him if it pleases you to do so; but it is useless to ask me to do the same.”

And with that Randolph rose, and quitted the room without another word.

“There is something odd about it all,” said Arthur, who was inclined to indulge a good deal of curiosity about other people’s affairs: “but I think Conrad behaves the better of the two.”

Monica quietly assented; but perhaps she might have changed her opinion had she heard the muttered threats breathed by Conrad as he rode across the darkening moor:

“So, Randolph Trevlyn, our paths have crossed once more! I have vowed vengeance upon you to your very face, and perhaps my day has come at last. I see through you. I see the game you are playing. I will baulk you, if I can; but in any case I will have my revenge.”