She let him talk to her of Randolph, though none of the others dared to breathe that name. Sometimes she played to him in the dimness of the music-room—and even he hardly knew how privileged he was to be admitted there. She regarded him in the light of a loved brother, and felt tenderly towards him, as one who had done and suffered much in the same cause that had cost her gallant husband his life. What he felt towards her would be more difficult to analyse. At present he simply worshipped her, with a humble, devout singleness of purpose that elevated his whole nature. The vague, fleeting, distant hope that some day it might be given to him to comfort her had hardly yet entered into the region of conscious thought.
Christmas had come and gone whilst Lord Haddon lay hovering between life and death. As the year turned, he began to regain health and strength; but his progress was exceedingly slow, and all idea of leaving Trevlyn was for the present entirely out of the question. A journey in mid-winter was not to be thought of. It would be enough to bring the whole illness back again; and Monica would not listen when he sometimes said, with diffidence and appeal, that he feared they were encroaching too much upon her hospitality and goodness. In truth, neither brother nor sister were in haste to leave Trevlyn, or to leave Monica alone in her desolate widowhood; and as Haddon’s state of health rendered a move out of the question, the situation was accepted with the more readiness.
Monica was able now to resume something of the even tenor of her way, to take up her daily round of duties, and shape out her life in accordance with her strangely altered circumstances.
All the old sense of dread connected with the sea had now vanished entirely. It never frowned upon her now. It was her friend always—the haunting presentiment of dread had passed away with the actual certainty. Henceforward nothing could hold for her any great measure of terror. She had passed through the very worst already.
Sometimes Monica had a strange feeling that she was not alone during her favourite twilight pacings by the sea. She had a sense of being watched—followed—and the uneasiness of the dogs added to this impression. It troubled her but little, however. She had no fears for herself—she knew, too, that she was a little fanciful, and that it was hardly likely in reality that her footsteps were dogged.