Trevlyns seem to be a dying race,” said the old earl, half sadly. “Our family is slowly dying out. I suppose it has done its work in the world, and is not needed any longer in these stirring times. You and my daughter are now the sole representatives of the Trevlyns in your generation, as my sister and I are in ours.”

Randolph Trevlyn looked into his kinsman’s face with a great deal of reverence and admiration. He liked to meet a man who was a genuine specimen of the “old school.” He felt a natural reverence for the head of his house, and his liking showed itself in voice and manner. Lord Trevlyn saw this, and was gratified, whilst the younger man was pleased to feel himself in accord with his host. The interview ended with mutual satisfaction on both [49]sides, and Randolph was taken up the great oak staircase, down one or two dim, ghostly corridors, and landed finally in a couple of large panelled rooms, most antiquely and quaintly furnished, in both of which, however, great fires of pine logs were blazing cheerily.

[49]

“We dine at eight,” Lord Trevlyn had said, in parting with his guest. “I shall hope then to have the pleasure of introducing you to my sister and my daughter.”

Left alone in his comfortable but rather grim-looking quarters, Randolph broke into a low laugh.

“And so this sombre old place, full of ghosts and phantoms of departed days—this enchanted castle between sea and forest—is the home of the lovely girl I saw [50]yesterday! Incongruous, and yet so entirely appropriate! She wants a setting of her own, different from anything else. It must have been Lady Monica I encountered, the lady of the pine-wood. What a sad, proud, lovely face it was, with its frame of golden hair, and soft eyes like a deer’s; and her voice was as sweet as her face, low, and rich, and full of music. What has been the secret of her life? Some sorrow, I am certain, has overshadowed it. Who will be the happy man to bring the sunshine back to that lovely troubled face? Randolph Trevlyn, do not run on so fast. You are no longer a boy. You must not judge by first impressions; you will know more of her soon.”

[50]

Randolph’s encounter with Monica the previous day had been purely accidental. [51]The young man had reached St. Maws one day earlier than he had expected, one day earlier than he had been invited to arrive at the Castle. Some business in Plymouth which he had expected would detain him some days had been despatched with greater 

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