Monica, white, trembling, unnerved by all she had gone through during the past minutes, held out her arms to her husband.
He clasped her close to his heart, and held her there as if he never meant to let her go. He bent his head over her, and she felt his kisses on her cheek. He did not doubt—he did not distrust her! His strong arms pressed her even closer and closer. She lay against his breast, feeling no wish ever to leave that shelter. Oh, he was so true and noble—her own loving, faithful husband! How she loved him she had never known until that supreme moment.
At last she stirred in his arms and lifted her face to his.
“Randolph, you must never leave me again,” she said. “I cannot bear it—I cannot.”
“I will not, my dear wife,” he answered. “Never again shall aught but death part thee and me.”
“Ah! do not talk of death, Randolph. I cannot bear it—I cannot listen.”
He pressed a kiss upon her trembling lips.
“Does my wife love me now?” he asked, very gravely and tenderly. “Let me hear it from your own sweet lips, my Monica.”
“Ah, Randolph, I love, I love you;” she lifted her eyes to his as she spoke. There was something almost solemn in their deep, earnest gaze. “Randolph, I do not think any one but your wife could know such a love as mine.”
“Not your husband?” he asked, returning her look with one equally full of meaning. “Monica, you may love as well, but I think you cannot love more than I do.”
She laid her head down again. It was unspeakably sweet to hear him say so, to feel his arms about her, to know that they were united at last, and that nothing could part them now.
“Not even death,” said Monica to herself; “for love like ours is stronger than death.”
“How came that scoundrel here?” asked Randolph, somewhat later as they stood together on the terrace, watching the moonlight on the sea.
“I think he came to frighten me—perhaps to try and hurt us once more by his wicked words and deeds. Randolph, is he mad? He looked so dreadful to-day. He was not the old Conrad I once knew. It was terrible—till you came.”
“I believe at times he is mad,” answered Randolph, “with a sort of madness that is not actual insanity, though somewhat akin to it. It is the madness of ungovernable passion and hatred that rises up in him from time to time against certain individuals, and becomes, as it seems, a sort of monomania with him. It was so with his friend and benefactor Colonel Hamilton, when once he felt himself found out. Ever since the horsewhipping I administered to him, I believe he has felt vindictively towards me. Our paths led us wide apart for several years, but as soon as we met again the old enmity rose up once more. He tried to hurt me through my wife.” Randolph looked down at her with a proud smile upon his handsome face. “I need not say how utterly and miserably he has failed.”