Tom sprang to his feet, and the two stood gazing at one another for a moment in mute surprise.

“You are ill,” said Beatrice; “you are as white as a sheet. What is the matter?”

She spoke anxiously. She looked half frightened at his strange looks; he saw it, and recovered himself instantly. It was perhaps the first time he had ever been taken unawares, and he was not altogether pleased that it had happened now.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” he asked peremptorily.

“What are you doing lying on the ground on a cold January evening?” she retorted. “Do you want to get rheumatic fever, too?”

“Answer my question first. What are you doing out here, miles away from home, with the darkness coming on, too?”

“I lost my way,” she answered carelessly. “I never can keep my bearings in these strange, wild places, where everything looks alike.”

“Then I must take you home,” said Tom shortly.

“You said you were going to dine at St. Maws to-night,” she objected.

“I shall take you home first,” he said.

“It will be ever so much out of your road. Just show me the way. I shall find it fast enough.”

“I dare say—After having lost it in broad daylight. You must come with me. I cannot trust you.”

Beatrice flushed hotly as she turned and walked beside him. Was more meant than met the ear?

“There is not the least need you should,” she said haughtily, and seemed disposed to say no more.

Tom spoke first, spoke in his abrupt peremptory fashion. He was absorbed and distrait. She tried not to feel disappointed at his words.

“Lady Beatrice, is it true that you knew Randolph Trevlyn intimately for many years?”

“Ever since I can remember. He was almost like a brother to us.”

“Do you know if he ever had an enemy?”

Beatrice looked up quickly into his pale face.

“Why do you ask?”

“That is my affair. I do not ask without a reason. Think before you answer—if you can.”

“Randolph was always such a favourite,” she began, but was interrupted by a quick impatient gesture from Tom.

“Don’t chatter,” he said, almost rudely, “think!”

Oddly enough this brusque reminder did not offend her. She saw that Tom’s nerves were all on edge, that they were strung to a painful pitch of tension. She began to catch some of his earnestness and determination.

Beatrice was taken out of herself, and from that moment her manner changed for the better. She thought the matter over in silence.

“I have heard that Sir Conrad Fitzgerald had an old grudge against him.”

“Ah!” breathed Tom softly.

“But I fancied, perhaps, that Monica’s influence had made them friends. Randolph knew some disreputable story connected with Sir Conrad’s past life—Haddon knows more about it than I do—and he always hated him for it.”

“Ah!” said Tom again.

“Why do you ask?” questioned Beatrice again; but he gave her no answer. He was wrapped in deep thought. She looked at him once or twice, but said no more. He was the first to speak, and the question was a little significant.

“You were down on the shore with Monica and Trevlyn that night, were you not?”

“Yes.”

“Was Fitzgerald there, too?”

She looked at him with startled eyes.

“No; certainly not.”

“Can you be sure of that? Was there moon enough to show plainly everything that went on?”

Beatrice put up her hand to her head.

“No,” she answered. “I ought not to have spoken so positively. It was too dark to see anything. There might have been dozens of people there whom I might never have seen. I was much too anxious and excited to keep a sharp look-out—why should I?—and there was not a gleam of moonlight till many minutes after the boat got back, and the confusion was very great all the time. Why do you talk so? Why do you ask such a question?”

She spoke with subdued excitement and insistance.

“Somebody was in that boat unknown to the crew,” he answered significantly.

“Was there?”

“Somebody steered the boat to shore. You do not share, I presume, in the popular belief of the phantom coxswain?”

Beatrice stopped short, trembling and scared.

“You think——?” but she could only get out those two words; she knew not how to frame the question.

He bent his head. “I do.”

But she put out her hand with a quick, passionate gesture, as if fighting with some hideous phantom.

“Ah! no! no! It could not be. It would be too unspeakably awful—too horrible! How do you know? How can you say such things? What has put such a hideous thought into your mind?”

“I came from standing by Fitzgerald’s bed, listening to his words of wandering, his delirious outbursts. It is plain enough what phantoms are haunting him now—what pictures he is seeing, as he lies in the stupor of drink and opium. He is trying to drown thought and remorse, but he has not succeeded yet.”

Beatrice shuddered strongly, and faltered a little in her walk. Tom took her hand and placed it within his arm.

“You are tired, Beatrice?”

“No; but it is so awful. Tom”—calling him so as unconsciously as he had called her Beatrice—“must Monica know this? Oh! it was cruel enough before—but this——”

“She shall never know,” said Tom quickly. “To what end should we add this burden to what she carries now? No one could prove it—it may be nothing more than some sick fancy, engendered by the thought of what might have been. Mind you, I have no moral doubts myself; but the man is practically mad, and no confession or evidence given by him would be accepted. He has fulfilled his vow—he has murdered—practically murdered his foe; but Monica must be spared the knowledge: she must never know.”

“No, never! never!” cried Beatrice; and her voice expressed so much feeling, that Tom turned and looked at her in the fading light.

“Have you a heart after all, Beatrice?” he asked.

She made no answer; her heart beat wildly, answering in its own fashion the question asked, but not in a way that he could hear.

“Beatrice,” rather fiercely, “why did you not marry the marquis?”

“Because I loathed him.”

“You did not always loathe him?”

“I did, I did, always.”

“You flirted with him disgracefully, then.”

She looked up with something of pleading in her dark eyes.

“I was but eighteen.”

“Do you never flirt now?”

She looked up again, her eyes flashing strangely.

“What right have you to ask such a question?”

“The right of the man who loves you,” he answered, in the same half-fierce, half-bitter way—“who loves you with every fibre of his being; and although he has proved you vain and frivolous and heartless once and again, cannot tear your image from his heart. Do not think I am complaining. I suppose you have a right to please yourself; but sometimes I feel as if no man had ever been treated so abominably as I have been by you.”

“You by me!” she answered, panting in her excitement, “when it was you who left me in a fury, without one word of farewell.”

“I thought I had had my congÉ pretty distinctly.”

“You had had nothing of the kind—nothing but a few wild confused words from a mere child, frightened and bewildered by happiness and nervousness into the silliest of speeches a silly girl could make at such a moment. But you cannot understand—you never will—you are made of stone, I think.”

He turned upon her quickly.

“I wish I were, sometimes,” he said; “I wish it when I am near you. You make me love you—I am powerless in your hands, and you—you——”

“I love you with all my heart. I have never loved anybody else, and you have behaved cruelly, disgracefully to me always.” The words came all at once in one vehement burst of passion.

He stopped short, wheeled round, and stood facing her. He could only just see her face as they stood thus in the gathering dusk.

“Beatrice,” he said, slowly, “what did you say just now? Say it again.”

Defiance shone out of her eyes.

“I will not!” she said, her cheeks flaming.

He took both her hands in his and held them hard.

“Yes you will,” he answered. “Say it again.”

She was panting with a strange mixture of feeling; the earth and sky seemed to spin round together.

“Say it again, Beatrice.”

“I said—I loved you; but I don’t—I will never, never say it again——”

She got no farther, for he held her so closely in his arms that all speech was impossible for the moment.

“That will do,” he answered. “I don’t want you to say it again. Once is enough.”

“Monica,” said Beatrice in the softest of whispers as she came into the quiet room where her brother lay asleep upon the sofa, and Monica sat dreaming beside the fire. “Ah, Monica, Monica!” and then she stopped short, kneeling down, and turning her quivering face and swimming eyes towards the face bent tenderly over her.

Somehow it was never needful to say much to Monica. She always understood without many words. She bent her head now, and kissed Beatrice.

“Is it so, then, dear?” she asked.

“Did you know?”

“I knew what you told me yourself, and I could see for myself that he had not forgotten any more than you.”

“I did not see it.”

“Possibly not—neither did he; but sometimes love is very blind—and very wilful too.”

Was there a touch of tender reproach in the tone? Beatrice looked at her earnestly.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “We both want to be master; but I think—I am afraid—he will have the upper hand now.”

But the smile that quivered over the upturned face was full of such sweetness and brightness that Monica kissed her again.

“You will not find him such a tyrant as he professes to be. Tom is very generous and unselfish, despite his affectation of cynicism. I am so glad you have made him happy at last. I am so glad that our paths in life will not lie very widely apart.”

Beatrice took Monica’s hand and kissed it.

“I am so happy,” she said simply. “And I owe it all to you.”

Monica caressed the dark head laid against her knee, as Beatrice subsided into her favourite lowly position at Monica’s feet. Presently she became aware that the girl’s tears were falling fast.

“Crying, dearest?” she questioned gently.

A stifled sob was the answer.

“What is the matter, my child?”

“Randolph!” was all that Beatrice could get out. Somehow the desolation of Monica’s life had never come home to her with quite the same sense of realisation as now, in the hour of her deepest happiness.

“He would be glad,” answered Monica, steadily and sweetly. “He loved you dearly, Beatrice; and he and Tom were always such friends. It was his hope that all would come right. If he can see us now, as I often think he can, he will be rejoicing in your happiness now. You must shed no tears to-night, dearest, unless they are tears of happiness.”

Beatrice suddenly half rose, and hung her arms round Monica.

“How can you bear it? How can you bear it? Monica, I think you are an angel. No one in this wide world was ever like you. And to think——” she shuddered strongly and stopped short.

“You are excited and over-wrought,” said Monica gently. “You must not let yourself be knocked up, or Tom will scold me when he comes back. See, Haddon is waking up. He had such a bad headache, poor boy; I hope he has slept it off. You must tell him the news—it will please him I am sure.”

“You tell him,” whispered Beatrice, and slipped away to relieve her over-burdened heart by a burst of tears; for one strange revelation following upon another had tried her more than she had known at the time.

Haddon was quietly pleased at the news. He liked Tom; he had fancied that he and Beatrice were not altogether indifferent to each other, so this conclusion did not take him altogether by surprise. He was sorry to think of losing Beatrice, but not as perplexed as he would have been some months before. Life looked different to him now—more serious and earnest. He began to have aspirations of his own. He no longer regarded existence as a sort of pleasant easy game of play.

Certainly it seemed as if the course of true love as regarded Beatrice and Tom, after passing its early shoals and quicksands, were to run quietly and smoothly enough now. He came back from St. Maws in time for dinner, and when dessert was put on the table, he announced his plans with the hardihood characteristic of the man.

“Aunt Elizabeth is delighted, Beatrice, and so is Raymond,” he said. “I have told them that we will be married almost at once, within two months, at least—oh, you needn’t look like that. I think I’ve waited long enough—pretty well as long as Jacob——”

“Did for Leah—and didn’t like her in the end—don’t make that your precedent.”

“Well, don’t interrupt,” proceeded Tom imperturbably. “We’ve got it all beautifully arranged. I’m going to take part of the regular practice, as Raymond has always been bothering me to do ever since it increased so much, and we’re to have half the house for our establishment, and he and Aunt Elizabeth the other. It was originally two houses, and lends itself excellently to that arrangement, though I dare say practically we shall be all one household, as you and our aunt have managed to hit it off so well. Monica, can’t Beatrice be married from Trevlyn when Haddon is well enough to give her away? It would save a lot of bother. I hate flummery, and I’m sure she does too. Come now, Beatrice, don’t laugh. Don’t you think that would be an excellent arrangement? Here we are; what is the good of getting all split up again? You’ll be losing your heart to another marquis if I let you out of my sight.”

Her eyes were dancing with mischievous merriment. She was more than ready to enter the lists.

“Just listen to the tyrant—trying to keep me a prisoner already! trying to take everything into his own hands—and not content without adding insult to injury!”

His eyes too were alight; but his mouth was grim.

“I have not forgotten how you served me last time, my lady.”

“At Oxford?”

“At Oxford.”

“Monica, listen. I will tell you how I served him. I had eyes for no one but him, silly girl that I was; I was with him morning, noon and night. Child as I was at the time, careless and inexperienced, even I was absolutely ashamed at the open preference I showed him; I blush even now to think of the undisguised way in which I flung myself at a particularly hard head. And yet he pretends he did not understand! If that is so, then for real, downright, hopeless stupidity and obtuseness, commend me to an Oxford double-first-class-man!”

Beatrice might get the best of it in an encounter of tongues, but Tom had his own way in the settlement of their affairs, possibly because her resistance was but a pretence. What, indeed, had they to wait for, when they had been waiting so many long years for one another?

Nothing clouded the horizon of their happiness. Even the hideous shadow which had been in a sense the means of bringing them together seemed to have vanished with the sudden disappearance of Conrad Fitzgerald from the neighbourhood. Upon the very day following Tom’s visit to him, he left his house, ill and weak as he was, to join his sister at Mentone. His servant accompanied him. The desolate house was shut up once more, and Tom Pendrill sincerely hoped that the haunting baleful influence of that wild and wicked nature had passed from their lives for ever.

And Beatrice after all was married at Trevlyn, in the little cliff church that had seen the hands of Randolph and Monica joined in wedlock. She resisted a good while, feeling afraid that it would be painful to Monica—a second wedding, and that within a few months of her own widowhood. But Monica took part with Tom, and the bride elect gave way, only too delighted at heart to be with Monica to the very last.

It was a very quiet wedding—as quiet as Monica’s own—even the people gathered together in the little church had hardly changed. Only one short year had passed since Monica in her snowy robes had stood before that little altar, with the marriage vow upon her lips—only a year ago, and now?

Yet Monica’s face was very calm and sweet. She shed no tears, she seemed to have no sad thoughts for herself, however others might feel. One pair of grey eyes seldom wandered from her face as the simple ceremonies of the day proceeded. One heart was far more occupied with thoughts of the pale-faced widow than of the blooming bride.

Haddon quitted Trevlyn almost immediately after his sister. The words of thanks he tried to speak faltered on his tongue, and would not come.

Monica understood, and answered by one of her sweetest smiles.

“You were Randolph’s friend; you are my friend now. You must not try to thank me. I am so very glad to think of the link that binds us together. I shall not lose sight of you whilst Beatrice is so near. You will come again some day?”

“Yes, Lady Trevlyn,” he answered quietly, “I will come again;” and he raised the hand he held for one moment very reverently to his lips.

As he drove away he looked back, and saw Monica still standing upon the terrace.

“Yes,” he said quietly to himself, “I will come back—some day.”