This outlet did her good. She was not a woman to whom talking was a necessity, yet it was better for her to speak sometimes of the sorrow that was weighing upon her crushed spirit; and it was far, far easier to do this to a listener like Haddon, who from his weakness and prostration could rise to no great heights of sympathy, could offer no attempt at consolation, could only look at her with wistful earnestness, and murmur a broken word from time to time, than it would have been to those who would have met her with a burst of tears, or with those quiet caresses and marks of sympathy that must surely have broken down her hardly-won composure and calm.
So this illness of Haddon’s had really been a boon to her, and perhaps to others as well; but for a few weeks Monica’s life seemed passed in a sort of dream, and she was able to notice but little that passed around her. She was wrapped in a strange trance—she lived in the past with her husband, who sometimes hardly seemed to have left her. Only when ministering to the needs of the young earl did she arouse herself from her waking dream, and even then it sometimes seemed as if the dream were the reality, and the reality a dream.
Tom was a great deal at Trevlyn just now. For a long time Haddon’s condition was so exceedingly critical that his presence was almost a necessity, and when the patient gradually became convalescent, Monica needed his help in getting through the business formalities that began to crowd upon her when all hopes of Randolph’s rescue became a thing of the past.
Monica was happy at least in this—there was no need for her to leave her old home—no new earl to claim Trevlyn, and banish her from the place she loved best in the world. The Trevlyns were a dying race, as it seemed. Randolph and Monica were the last of their name, and the entail expired with him. Trevlyn was hers, as well as all her husband’s property. She was a rich woman, but in the first instance it was difficult to understand the position, and she naturally turned in her perplexity to Tom Pendrill, who was a thorough man of business, shrewd and hard-headed, and who, from his long acquaintance and connection with Trevlyn, understood more about the estate than anybody else she could have selected. He was very good to her, as she always said. He put himself entirely at her disposal, and played the part of a kind and wise brother. His dry, matter-of-fact manner of dealing with transfer of property, and such-like matters, was in itself a comfort. She was never afraid of talking things over with him. He kept sentiment studiously and entirely in the back-ground. Although she knew perfectly that his sympathy for her was very great, he never obtruded it upon her in the least; it was offered and accepted in perfect silence on both sides.