Monica, Volume 2 (of 3). Everett-Green Evelyn

those who have dared to say such things, to believe such things of me. What does it matter what they think, when we are far away? Take me back to Trevlyn, and let us forget it all. Let me go, if only for a week. I have never asked you anything before. Oh! Randolph, do not be so hard! Say that you will take me home!”

      “If I loved you less, Monica,” he answered, in a very low, gentle tone, “I should say yes. As it is, I say no. I cannot take you to Trevlyn yet.”

      She turned away then, and left him without a word, passing slowly through the brilliantly-lighted room, and up the wide staircase. Randolph sat down and rested his head upon his hand, and a long-drawn sigh rose up from the very depths of his heart. This interview had tried him quite as much as it had done Monica – possibly even more.

      “Perhaps, after all, Fitzgerald has revenged himself,” he muttered, “though not in a way he anticipated. Ah, Monica! my fair young wife, why cannot you trust me a little more?”

      Monica trusted him far more than he knew. It was not in anger that she had left him. In the depth of her heart she believed that he had judged wisely and well; it was only the wave of home-sickness sweeping over her that had urged her to such passionate pleading. And then his strong, inflexible firmness gave her a curious sense of rest and confidence. She herself was so torn and rent by conflicting emotions, by bewilderment and uncertainty, that his resolute determination and singleness of purpose were as a rock and tower of defence. She had called him cruel in the keen disappointment of the moment, but she knew he was not really so. Home-sick, aching for Trevlyn as she was – irrepressibly as she shrank from the idea of facing those to whom she had given cause to say that she did not love her husband, she felt that his decision was right. It might be hard, but it was necessary, and she would go through her part unflinchingly for his sake. It was the least that she could do to make amends for the unconscious wrong she had done him.