“You are very cruel to me Randolph,” she said, with the sharpness of keen misery in her voice.
He stood quite still, looking at her, and then continued in the same quiet way:
“Shall I tell you why? I cannot take you away until we have been seen together as before. I shall go with you to some of those houses you have visited without me. We must be seen riding and driving, and going about as if nothing whatever had occurred during my absence. If we meet Fitzgerald, there must be nothing in your manner or in mine to indicate that he is otherwise than absolutely indifferent to us. I dare say he will put himself in your way. He would like to force upon me the part of the jealous, distrustful husband, but it is a _rôle_ I decline to play at his bidding. I am not jealous, nor am I distrustful, and he and all the world shall see that this is so. If I take you away now, Monica, I shall give occasion for people to say that I am afraid to trust my wife in any place where she may meet Fitzgerald. Let us stay where we are, and ignore the foolish rumours he has circulated, and we shall soon see them drop into deserved oblivion.”
“Randolph, I cannot! I cannot!” cried Monica, who was now overwrought and agitated to the verge of exhaustion; “I _cannot_ stay here. I cannot go amongst 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?”