Yes, she no longer doubted that now. Something in the very perfectness of her own love drove away the haunting doubts and fears that had troubled her for so long. He had her heart, and she had his, and when once she had him home again the last shadow would have vanished away. How her heart beat as she pictured that meeting! How she counted the hours till she had him back!
Only once was she disturbed in her quiet, dreamy time of waiting.
Once, as she was riding through the loneliest part of the lonely pine wood, Conrad Fitzgerald suddenly stood in her path, gazing earnestly at her with a look she could not fathom.
Her face flushed and paled. She regarded him with a glance of haughty displeasure.
He did not move; he was still fixedly regarding her.
“I told you how it would be, Monica,” he said. “I told you Arthur would be sent away.”
She smiled a smile he did not understand.
His eyes began to glow dangerously. Her beauty and her scorn drove him to a sort of fury.
“Is this the way you keep your promise? Is this how you treat a man you have promised to call your friend?”
“My friend!” Monica repeated the words very slowly, with an inflection the meaning of which could not be misunderstood; nor did he affect to misunderstand her.
“Lady Monica,” he said, “you have heard some lying story, I perceive, trumped up by that scoundrel you call your husband.”
He was forced to spring on one side then, for Monica had urged her horse forward, regardless of his presence, and the flash in her eye made him recoil for a moment; but he was wild with rage, and sprang at her horse, catching him by the bridle.
“You shall hear me!” he cried. “You shall, I say! You have heard his story, now hear mine. He has brought false reports. I know him of old. He is my enemy. He has poisoned others against me before now. Lady Monica, upon my word of honour——”
That was all. Indeed, there was no more to be said. Even Conrad felt that, and his grasp upon the reins relaxed. Monica was not in the least afraid of him. She looked him steadily over as she moved quietly onward, without the least haste or flurry. Her quiet courage, her lofty scorn of him, stung him to madness.
“Very good, Lady Monica—I beg your pardon—Lady Trevlyn, I should say now. Very good. We understand each other excellently well. You have made a promise, only to break it—I will show you how a vow _can_ be kept. I, too, have made a vow in my time. I make another now. I have vowed to ruin the happiness and prosperity of Randolph Trevlyn’s life; now I will do more. I will destroy your peace and happiness also!”