Monica, Volume 3 (of 3)

“No; but it is so awful. Tom” – calling him so as unconsciously as he had called her Beatrice – “must Monica know this? Oh! it was cruel enough before – but this – ”

“She shall never know,” said Tom quickly. “To what end should we add this burden to what she carries now? No one could prove it – it may be nothing more than some sick fancy, engendered by the thought of what might have been. Mind you, I have no moral doubts myself; but the man is practically mad, and no confession or evidence given by him would be accepted. He has fulfilled his vow – he has murdered – practically murdered his foe; but Monica must be spared the knowledge: she must never know.”

“No, never! never!” cried Beatrice; and her voice expressed so much feeling, that Tom turned and looked at her in the fading light.

“Have you a heart after all, Beatrice?” he asked.

She made no answer; her heart beat wildly, answering in its own fashion the question asked, but not in a way that he could hear.

“Beatrice,” rather fiercely, “why did you not marry the marquis?”

“Because I loathed him.”

“You did not always loathe him?”

“I did, I did, always.”

“You flirted with him disgracefully, then.”

She looked up with something of pleading in her dark eyes.

“I was but eighteen.”

“Do you never flirt now?”

She looked up again, her eyes flashing strangely.

“What right have you to ask such a question?”

“The right of the man who loves you,” he answered, in the same half-fierce, half-bitter way – “who loves you with every fibre of his being; and although he has proved you vain and frivolous and heartless once and again, cannot tear your image from his heart. Do not think I am complaining. I suppose you have a right to please yourself; but sometimes I feel as if no man had ever been treated so abominably as I have been by you.”

“You by me!” she answered, panting in her excitement, “when it was you who left me in a fury, without one word of farewell.”

“I thought I had had my congé pretty distinctly.”

“You had had nothing of the kind – nothing but a few wild confused words from a mere child, frightened and bewildered by happiness and nervousness into the silliest of speeches a silly girl could make at such a moment. But you cannot understand – you never will – you are made of stone, I think.”

He turned upon her quickly.

“I wish I were, sometimes,” he said; “I wish it when I am near you. You make me love you – I am powerless in your hands, and you – you – ”

“I love you with all my heart. I have never loved anybody else, and you have behaved cruelly, disgracefully to me always.” The words came all at once in one vehement burst of passion.

He stopped short, wheeled round, and stood facing her. He could only just see her face as they stood thus in the gathering dusk.

“Beatrice,” he said, slowly, “what did you say just now? Say it again.”

Defiance shone out of her eyes.

“I will not!” she said, her cheeks flaming.

He took both her hands in his and held them hard.

“Yes you will,” he answered. “Say it again.”

She was panting with a strange mixture of feeling; the earth and sky seemed to spin round together.

“Say it again, Beatrice.”

“I said – I loved you; but I don’t – I will never, never say it again – ”

She got no farther, for he held her so closely in his arms that all speech was impossible for the moment.

“That will do,” he answered. “I don’t want you to say it again. Once is enough.”

“Monica,” said Beatrice in the softest of whispers as she came into the quiet room where her brother lay asleep upon the sofa, and Monica sat dreaming beside the fire. “Ah, Monica, Monica!” and then she stopped short, kneeling down, and turning her quivering face and swimming eyes towards the face bent tenderly over her.

Somehow it was never needful to say much to Monica. She always understood without many words. She bent her head now, and kissed Beatrice.

“Is it so, then, dear?” she asked.

“Did you know?”

“I knew what you told me yourself, and I could see for myself that he had not forgotten any more than you.”

“I did not see it.”

“Possibly not – neither did he; but sometimes love is very blind – and very wilful too.”

Was there a touch of tender reproach in the tone? Beatrice looked at her earnestly.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “We both want to be master; but I think – I am afraid – he will have the upper hand now.”

But the smile that quivered over the upturned face was full of such sweetness and brightness that Monica kissed her again.

“You will not find him such a tyrant as he professes to be. Tom is very generous and unselfish, despite his affectation of cynicism. I am so glad you have made him happy at last. I am so glad that our paths in life will not lie very widely apart.”

Beatrice took Monica’s hand and kissed it.

“I am so happy,” she said simply. “And I owe it all to you.”

Monica caressed the dark head laid against her knee, as Beatrice subsided into her favourite lowly position at Monica’s feet. Presently she became aware that the girl’s tears were falling fast.

“Crying, dearest?” she questioned gently.

A stifled sob was the answer.

“What is the matter, my child?”