appear unhappy. No one should in future have cause to say that her present life was not congenial [54]to her. Certainly, if anyone took the trouble to watch her now, it would easily be seen that she was no longer indifferent to her husband. Her eyes often followed him about when he was absent from her side. She always seemed to know where he was, and to turn to him with a sort of instinctive welcome when he came back to her. This clinging to him was quite unconscious, the natural result of her confidence in his strength and protecting care; but it was visible to one pair of keenly jealous eyes, and Conrad Fitzgerald, when he occasionally found himself in company with Randolph and his wife, watched with a sense of baffled malevolence the failure of his carefully-planned scheme.

[54]

People began to talk now of the devotion of Mr. Trevlyn and Lady Monica with as [55]much readiness and carelessness as they had done about their visible estrangement. It takes very little to set idle tongues wagging, and every one admired the bride and liked the bridegroom, so that the good opinion of the world was not difficult to regain.

[55]

But Monica’s peace of mind was less easily recovered. At home she was grave and sad, and he thought her cold; and the full and entire reconciliation—of which, indeed, at that time she would have felt quite unworthy—was not to be yet. Each was conscious of deep love on his or her own side, but could not read the heart of the other, and feared to break the existing calm by any attempt to ruffle the surface of the waters.

They were not very much alone, for [56]Lord Haddon and his sister spent many evenings with them when they were not otherwise engaged, and the intimacy between the two houses increased rapidly.

[56]

Monica had never again alluded to the prospective return to Trevlyn—the half-promise made by Randolph to take her back soon. She did not know what “soon” might mean, and she did not ask. She had grown content now to leave that question in his hands.

Once, when in the after-dinner twilight, she had been talking to Beatrice of her old home, the latter said, with eager vehemence:

“How you must long to see it again! How you must ache to be out of this tumult, and back with your beloved sea and cliffs and pine-woods! Don’t you [57]hate our noisy, busy London? Don’t you pine to go back?”

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