She went up to the bed-room herself, to see if it were ready should there be need. It was probably only some poor tramp or fisherman who had met with the accident—no matter, he should be tended at Trevlyn, he should lie in its most comfortable guest-chamber, he should have every care that wealth could supply. Monica knew too well the dire results that might follow a slip down those hard, treacherous cliffs not to feel peculiarly tender and solicitous over another victim.
The steady tramp of feet ascending the stairs and approaching the room where she stood, roused Monica to the knowledge that the injured man was not dead, and that they were bringing him up to be tended and nursed as she had directed. The door was pushed open; six men carried in their burden upon an improvised stretcher, and laid it just as it was upon the bed. Monica stepped forward, and then started, growing a little pale; for she recognised in the death-like rigid face before her the well-known countenance of Conrad Fitzgerald.
She could not look without a shudder at that shattered frame, and Wilberforce shook her head gravely, marvelling that he yet breathed. None save professional hands dared touch him, so distorted and dislocated was every limb; and yet by one of those strange coincidences, not altogether uncommon in cases of accident, the beautiful face was entirely untouched, not marred by a scratch or contusion. Death-like unconsciousness had set its seal upon those chiselled, marble features, and had wiped from them every trace of passion or of vice.
Tom Pendrill was amongst them long before they looked for him. He had met the messenger not far from Trevlyn, and had come at once. He turned Monica out of the room with a stern precipitancy that perplexed her somewhat, as did also the expression of his face, which she did not understand. He shut himself up with his patient, retaining the services of Wilberforce and one of the men.
It was two hours before she saw him again.
Monica wandered up and down the dark hall, revolving many things in her mind. What had brought Conrad so suddenly back at this melancholy time of the year? She had believed him abroad with his sister, with whom he seemed to have spent his time since his disappearance early in the spring. What had brought him back now? And why did he so haunt the frowning, treacherous cliffs of Trevlyn? Was he mad? But why did his madness always drive him to this spot? She asked many such questions of herself, but she could answer none of them.