His face softened as he looked at her, but there was a good deal of sadness there, too. “I do not believe you would deliberately listen to such words from him; but are not poisoned shafts launched sometimes that strike home and rankle? Has no one ever come between you and me, since [45]the day you gave yourself to me in marriage?” [45] He saw her hesitation, and a great sadness came into his eyes. How near she was and yet how far! His heart ached for her in her loneliness and isolation, and it ached for himself too. Monica broke the silence first. “Randolph,” she said timidly; “no harm has been done to you, really? He cannot hurt you; can he?” His face was stern as he answered her. “He will hurt me if he can—through my wife. His threat is still unfulfilled; but he knows where to plant a blow, how to strike in the dark. Yes, Monica, he has hurt me.” She drew back a pace. “How?” [46] [46] “It hurts me to know that idle gossip connects my wife’s name with his—that he has the credit of being a lover, discarded only from motives of policy. I know that there is not a syllable of truth in these reports—that they have been set afloat by his malicious tongue. Nevertheless, they hurt me. They hurt me the more because my wife has given some countenance to such rumours, by permitting a certain amount of intimacy with a man whom her husband will not receive.” Monica was white to the lips. She understood now, as she had never done before, what Cecilia Bellamy had meant by her flighty speeches a few hours before. They had disgusted and offended her then, now they appeared like absolute insults. Randolph saw the stricken look upon her [47]face, and knew that she was cut to the quick. [47] “Monica,” he said, more gently, “what has been done can be undone by a little patience and self-control. We need not be afraid of a man like Sir Conrad. I have known him and his ways long. He has tried before to injure me without success. He has tried in a more subtle way this time; yet
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