“Randolph! Can this really be Trevlyn?”

The young countess stood in all her radiant loveliness upon the threshold of her old home, and turned her happy face towards the husband who stood beside her, watching with a smile in his eyes for the effect to be produced by his labour of love.

“Can this really be Trevlyn?”

“You seemed destined never to know your old home again when you have been banished from it, Monica,” he answered, smiling. “Well, is it as much changed as you expected?”

“It is perfect,” said Monica simply; adding, after another long look round her: “If only my father could have seen this—could have lived to witness the realisation of his dream!”

But he would not let her indulge one sad thought that should cloud the brightness of this happy home-coming. He kissed her gently in token of his sympathy, and then drew her towards the blazing fire, whose dancing flames were illuminating the great hall.

“Does it realise your dream, too, my Monica?” he asked softly.

She looked up in his face, deep feeling welling up in the glance of her soft dark eyes.

“To be with you is my dream, Randolph. That is enough for me.”

He saw that she was moved, and knew that the associations of Trevlyn, the old home, were crowding upon her. Without speaking, he led her towards a door, which in old days led to a room vast and empty, save for the odds and ends of lumber that gradually accumulated there. Monica glanced up in a sort of surprise as he turned the handle. Why was he taking her there?

She paused on the threshold, and looked about her in mute amaze.

The floor was of polished parquetrie work; the panelled walls, quaintly and curiously carved, shone with the care that had been bestowed upon them; the vaulted roof had been carefully restored and was a fine specimen of mediæval skill and beauty. The mullioned window to the west had been filled with rich stained glass, that gave back a dusky glimmer through its tinted panes, though the daylight was failing fast. Near to the window stood the one great feature of the room, an organ, which Monica’s eyes saw at once was a particularly fine and perfect instrument. An organ of her very own! It was just like Randolph to think of it! She gave him one sweet glance of gratitude, and went up to it in the dim, dusky twilight.

“How good you are to me!” she said softly.

He heard the little quiver in her voice, and bent his head to kiss her; but he spoke in a lighter tone.

“Do you like it? I am so glad! I thought your home ought not to be without its music-room. See, Monica, your organ will be a sort of friend to whom you can confide all your secrets; for you want nobody to blow it for you. You can set the bellows at work by just turning this handle, and nobody need disturb your solitude when you want to be alone.”

She looked up gratefully. He never forgot anything—not even her old love for solitude.

“I never want to be alone now, Randolph,” she said. “I always want you.”

“And you generally have me, sweet wife. I think we have hardly been separated for more than a few hours at a time since that happy, happy day that made you really mine.”

“I want it always to be like that,” said Monica, dreamily; “always like that.”

He looked at her, and carried the hand that he held to his lips.

“Will you play, Monica?”

She sat down and struck a few dreamy chords, gradually leading up to the theme that was in her mind. Randolph leaned against the mullioned window-frame and watched her. He could see, even in the darkness, the pure, pale outline of her perfect profile, and the crown of her golden hair that framed her face like an aureole.

“Another dream realised, Monica,” he said softly, as she turned to him at length.

“What dream, Randolph?”

“A dream that came to me once, in the little cliff church where we were married, as I watched you—little as you knew it—sitting at the organ, and playing to yourself, one sunny afternoon. But this is better than any dream of pictured saint or spirit—my Monica, my own true wife.”

She looked up at him, and came and put her arms about his neck—an unusual demonstration, even now, for her, and they stood very close together in the gathering darkness that was not dark to them.

Monica paid an early visit to St. Maws to see her friends, and to confide to Mrs. Pendrill a little of the wonderful happiness that had flooded her life with sunshine. Then, too, she wanted to see Tom, and to ask him the result of the mission he had half promised to undertake. So far she had learned nothing save that Fitzgerald had not been seen near Trevlyn for many weeks, and was supposed to have gone abroad.

“Did you see him, Tom?” she asked, when she had found the opportunity she desired.

“Yes, once or twice. I had a good look at him. I should not call him exactly mad, though in a decidedly peculiar mental state. We merely met, as it were, by chance, and talked on indifferent subjects for the most part. Once he asked me, in a sort of veiled way, for professional advice, describing certain unpleasant symptoms and sensations. I advised him to give up the use of spirits, and to try what travelling would do for him. He seemed to think he would take my advice, and shortly afterwards he disappeared from the neighbourhood; but where he has gone I do not know.”

Monica knew that this advice had been followed. “He may go anywhere he likes, if he will only keep away from here,” she said. “I am very much obliged to you, Tom, for doing as I asked.”

“Pray don’t mention it.”

“I must mention it, because it was very good of you. Tom, will you come and stay at Trevlyn next week? We have one or two people coming for the pheasants, and we want you to make one of the party, if you will.”

“Oh, very well; anything to please. I have had no shooting worth speaking of so far. I should like a week’s holiday very well.”

So that matter was speedily and easily arranged.

Tom did not ask who were the guests he was to meet, and Monica did not think of naming such entire strangers, Lord Haddon and Lady Beatrice Wentworth. She forgot that Tom and the young earl had met once before on a different occasion.

Those two were to be the first guests. Perhaps later on they would ask more, but Monica was too entirely happy in her present life to wish it in any way disturbed, and Randolph by no means cared to be obliged to give up to guests those happy hours that heretofore he had always spent with Monica. But Beatrice and her brother had already been invited. They were his oldest friends, and were Monica’s friends too. She was glad to welcome them to her old home, and the rapturous admiration that its beauties elicited would have satisfied a more exacting nature than hers.

Beatrice was, as usual, radiant, bewitching, delightful. Monica wished that Tom had come in time to see her arrival, and listen to her sparkling flow of talk. Tom professed to be a woman-hater, or next door to it, but she thought that even he would have to make an exception in favour of Lady Beatrice Wentworth.

She went upstairs with her guest to her room at length, when Beatrice suddenly turned towards her, with quite a new expression upon her face.

“Monica,” she said, looking straight into her eyes, “you are changed—you are different from what you were in London—different even from what you were in Scotland, though I saw a change then. I don’t know how to express it, but you are beautified—glorified. What is it? What has changed you since I first knew you?”

Monica knew right well; but some feelings could not be translated into words.

“I am very happy,” she said, quietly. “If there is any change, that must be the cause.”

“Happier than you have ever been before?”

“Yes; I think every week makes me happier. I learn to know my husband better and better, you see.”

A sudden wistful sadness flashed into the eyes so steadily regarding her. Monica saw it before it had been blotted out by the arch drollery of the look that immediately succeeded.

“And it does not wear off, Monica? Sometimes it does, you know—after a time. Will it ever, in your case, do you think?”

“I think not,” she answered.

“And I think not, too,” answered Beatrice. “Ah me! How happy some people are!”

She laughed, but there was something of bitterness in the tone. Monica looked at her seriously.

“Are you not happy, Beatrice?”

The girl’s audacious smile beamed out over her face.

“Don’t I look so?”

“Sometimes—not always.”

“One must have variety before all things, you know,” was the gay answer. “It would never do to be always in the same style—it lacks piquancy after a time. Now let me have time to beautify myself in harmony with this most charming of old places, and come back for me when you are dressed; I feel as if I should lose my way, or see bogies in these delightful corridors and staircases.”

And Monica left her guest as desired, coming back, half an hour later, to find her transformed into the semblance of some pictured dame of a century or two gone by, in stiff amber brocade, quaintly cut about the neck and sleeves, and relieved here and there by dazzling scarlet blossoms. Beatrice never at any time looked like anybody else, but to-night she was particularly, strikingly original.

“Ah, you black-robed queen, you will just do as a foil for me!” was the greeting Monica received. “Whenever I see you in any garb, no matter what it is, I always think it is just one that suits you best of everything. Are you having a dinner-party to-night?”

“Not exactly. A few men are coming, who have asked Randolph to shoot since we came back. You and I are the only ladies.”

And then they went down to the empty drawing-room a good half-hour before any one else was likely to appear.

Beatrice chatted away very brightly. She seemed in gay spirits, and had a great deal to tell of what had passed since their farewell in Scotland a month or two ago.

She moved about the drawing-room, examining the various treasures it contained, and admiring the beauty of the pictures. She was standing half concealed by the curtains draping a recessed window, when the door opened, admitting Tom Pendrill. He was in dinner dress, having arrived about an hour previously.

“You have come then, Tom,” said Monica. “I am glad. I was afraid you meant to desert us after all.”

“The wish being father to the thought, I presume,” answered Tom, shaking hands. “By-the-bye, here is a letter from Arthur’s doctor I’ve brought to show you. He gives a capital account of his patient. Can you read German writing, or shall I construe? He writes about as crabbedly as——”

And here Tom stopped short, seeing that Monica was not alone.

“I beg your pardon,” he added, drawing himself up with a ceremoniousness quite unusual with him.

“Not at all,” answered Monica, quietly. “Let me introduce you to Lady Beatrice Wentworth—Mr. Tom Pendrill.”

They exchanged bows very distantly. Monica became suddenly aware, in some subtle, inexplicable fashion, that these two were not strangers to one another—that this was not their first meeting. Moreover, it appeared as if their former acquaintance, such as it was, could have been by no means agreeable to either, for it was easy to see that a sort of covert antagonism existed between them which neither of them took over much pains to conceal.

Tom’s face assumed its most sharply cynical expression, as he drew at once into his hardest shell of distant reserve and sarcastic politeness.

Beatrice opened her feather fan, and wielded it with a sort of aggressive negligence. She dropped into a seat beside Monica, and began to talk to her with an air of studied affectation utterly at variance with her ordinary manner, ignoring Tom as entirely as if no introduction had passed between them, and that with an assumption of hauteur that could only be explained by a deeply-seated antipathy.

Monica tried to include Tom in the conversation; but he declined to be included, returned an indifferent answer, and withdrew to a distant corner of the room, where he remained deeply engrossed, as it seemed, in the study of a photographic album.

Monica was perplexed. She could not imagine what it all meant. She had never heard the Pendrills speak of Lady Beatrice Wentworth, and she was sufficiently acquainted with Tom’s history to render this perplexity the greater. She was certain Mrs. Pendrill had heard the name of her expected guest, and it had aroused no emotion in her. Yet she would presumably know the name of a lady towards whom her nephew cherished so great an antipathy. Monica could not make it out. But one thing was plain enough: those two were sworn foes, and intended to remain so—and they were guests beneath the same roof!