"where can mona be?" says doatie, suddenly.
we must go back one hour. lady lilias eaton has come and gone. it is now a quarter to five, and violet is pouring out tea in the library.
"yes; where is mona?" says jack, looking up from the cup she has just given him.
"i expect i know more than most about her," says nolly, who is enjoying himself immensely among the sponge, and the plum-cakes. "i told her the æsthetic was likely to call this afternoon, and advised her strongly to make her escape while she could."
"she evidently took your advice," says nicholas.
"well, i went rather minutely into it, you know. i explained to her how lady lilias was probably going to discuss the new curfew-bell in all its bearings; and i hinted gloomily at the 'domesday book.' that fetched her. she vamoosed on the spot."
"nothing makes me so hungry as lady lilias," says doatie, comfortably. she is lying back in a huge arm-chair that is capable of holding three like her, and is devouring bread and butter like a dainty but starved little fairy. nicholas, sitting beside her, is holding her tea-cup, her own special tea-cup of gaudy sèvres. "she is very trying, isn't she, nicholas? what a dazzling skin she has!—the very whitest i ever saw."
"well, that is in her favor, i really think," says violet, in her most unprejudiced manner. "if she were to leave off her rococo toilettes, and take to elise or worth like other people, and give up posing, and try to behave like a rational being, she might almost be called handsome."
no one seconds this rash opinion. there is a profound silence. miss mansergh looks mildly round for support, and, meeting jack's eyes, stops there.
"well, really, you know, yes. i think there is something special about her," he says, feeling himself in duty bound to say something.
"so there is; something specially awful," responds nolly, pensively. "she frightens me to death. she has an 'eye like a gimlet.' when i call to mind the day my father inveigled me into the library and sort of told me i couldn't do better than go in for lilias, my knees give way beneath me and smite each other with fear. i shudder to think what part in her mediæval programme would have been allotted to me."
"you would have been her henchman,—is that right, nicholas?—or her varlet," says dorothy, with conviction, "and you would have had to stain your skin, and go round with a cross-bow, and with your mouth widened from ear to ear to give you the correct look. all æsthetic people have wide mouths, have they not, nicholas?"
"bless me, what an enthralling picture!" says mr. darling. "you make me regret all i have lost. but perhaps it is not yet too late. i say, dolly, you are eating nothing. have some more bread-and-butter or cake, old girl. you don't half take care of yourself."
"well, do you know, i think i will take another bit of cake," says doatie, totally unabashed. "and—cut it thick. after all, noll, i don't believe lilias would ever marry you, or any other man: she wouldn't know what to do with you."
"it is very good of you to say that," says nolly, meekly but gratefully. "it gives me great support. you honestly believe, then, that i may escape?"
"just fancy the æsthetic with a husband, and a baby on her knee."
"like 'loraine loraine loree,'" says violet, laughing.
"did she have both together on her knee?" asks dorothy, vaguely. "she must have found it heavy."
"oh, one at a time," says nolly. "she couldn't do it all at once. such a stretch of fancy requires thought."
at this moment, geoffrey—who has been absent—saunters into the room, and, after a careless glance around, says, lightly, as if missing something,—
"where is mona?"
"well, we thought you would know," says lady rodney, speaking for the first time.
"yes. where is she?" says doatie: "that is just what we all want to know. she won't get any tea if she doesn't come presently, because nolly is bent on finishing it. nolly," with plaintive protest, "don't be greedy."
"we thought she was with you," says captain rodney, idly.
"she is out," says lady rodney, in a compressed tone.
"is she? it is too late for her to be out," returns geoffrey, thinking of the chill evening air.
"quite too late," acquiesces his mother, meaningly. "it is, to say the least of it, very strange, very unseemly. out at this hour, and alone,—if, indeed, she is alone!"
her tone is so unpleasant and so significant that silence falls upon the room. geoffrey says nothing. perhaps he alone among them fails to understand the meaning of her words. he seems lost in thought. so lost, that the others, watching him, wonder secretly what the end of his meditations will bring forth: yet, one and all, they mistake him: no doubt of mona ever has, or ever will, i think, cross his mind.
lady rodney regards him curiously, trying to read his downcast face. has the foolish boy at last been brought to see a flaw in his idol of clay?
nicholas is looking angry. jack, sinking into a chair near violet, says, in a whisper, that "it is a beastly shame his mother cannot let mona alone. she seems, by jove! bent on turning geoffrey against her."
"it is cruel," says violet, with suppressed but ardent ire.
"if—if you loved a fellow, would anything turn you against him?" asks he, suddenly, looking her full in the face.
and she answers,—
"nothing. not all the talking in the wide world," with a brilliant blush, but with steady earnest eyes.
nolly, mistrustful of geoffrey's silence, goes up to him, and, laying his hands upon his shoulders, says, quietly,—
"mrs. geoffrey is incapable of making any mistake. how silent you are, old fellow!"
"eh?" says geoffrey, rousing himself and smiling genially. "a mistake? oh, no. she never makes mistakes. i was thinking of something else. but she really ought to be in now, you know; she will catch her death of cold."
the utter want of suspicion in his tone drives lady rodney to open action. to do her justice, dislike to mona has so warped her judgment that she almost believes in the evil she seeks to disseminate about her.
"you are wilfully blind," she says, flushing hotly, and smoothing with nervous fingers an imaginary wrinkle from her gown. "of course i explained matters as well as i could to mitchell, but it was very awkward, and very unpleasant, and servants are never deceived."
"i hardly think i follow you," says geoffrey, in a frozen tone. "in regard to what would you wish your servants deceived?"
"of course it is quite the correct thing your taking it in this way," goes on his mother, refusing to be warned, and speaking with irritation,—"the only course left open; but it is rather absurd with me. we have all noticed your wife's extraordinary civility to that shocking young man. such bad taste on her part, considering how he stands with regard to us, and the unfortunate circumstances connected with him. but no good ever comes of unequal marriages."
"now, once for all, mother—" begins nicholas, vehemently, but geoffrey, with a gesture, silences him.
"i am perfectly content, nay more than content, with the match i have made," he says, haughtily; "and if you are alluding to paul rodney, i can only say i have noticed nothing reprehensible in mona's treatment of him."
"you are very much to be admired," says his mother, in an abominable tone.
"i see no reason why she should not talk to any man she pleases. i know her well enough to trust her anywhere, and am deeply thankful for such knowledge. in fact," with some passion, sudden but subdued, "i feel as though in discussing her in this cold-blooded fashion i am doing her some grievous wrong."
"it almost amounts to it," says nicholas, with a frown.
"besides, i do not understand what you mean," says geoffrey, still regarding his mother with angry eyes "why connect mona's absence with paul rodney?"
"i shall tell you," exclaims she, in a higher tone, her pale-blue eyes flashing. "two hours ago my own maid received a note from paul rodney's man directed to your wife. when she read it she dressed herself and went from this house in the direction of the wood. if you cannot draw your own conclusions from these two facts, you must be duller or more obstinate than i give you credit for."
she ceases, her work accomplished. the others in the room grow weak with fear, as they tell themselves that things are growing too dreadful to be borne much longer. when the silence is quite insupportable, poor little dorothy struggles to the front.
"dear lady rodney," she says, in a tremulous tone, "are you quite sure the note was from that—that man?"
"quite sure," returns her future mother-in law, grimly. "i never speak, dorothy, without foundation for what i say."
dorothy, feeling snubbed, subsides into silence and the shadow that envelopes the lounge on which she is sitting.
to the surprise of everybody, geoffrey takes no open notice of his mother's speech. he does not give way to wrath, nor does he open his lips on any subject. his face is innocent of anger, horror, or distrust. it changes, indeed, beneath the glow of the burning logs but in a manner totally unexpected. an expression that might even be termed hope lights it up. like this do his thoughts run: "can it be possible that the australian has caved in, and, fearing publicity after last night's fiasco, surrendered the will to mona?"
possessed with this thought,—which drowns all others,—he clasps his hands behind his back and saunters to the window. "shall he go and meet mona and learn the truth at once? better not, perhaps; she is such a clever child that it is as well to let her achieve victory without succor of any sort."
he leans against the window and looks out anxiously upon the darkening twilight. his mother watches him with curious eyes. suddenly he electrifies the whole room by whistling in a light and airy fashion his favorite song from "madame favart." it is the "artless thing," and nothing less, and he whistles it deliberately and dreamily from start to finish.
it seems such a direct running commentary on mona's supposed ill deed that every one—as by a single impulse—looks up. nolly and jack rodney exchange covert glances. but for the depression that reigns all round, i think these two would have given way to frivolous merriment.
"by jove, you know, it is odd," says geoffrey, presently, speaking as one might who has for long been following out a train of thought by no means unpleasant, "his sending for her, and that: there must be something in it. rodney didn't write to her for nothing. it must have been to——" here he checks himself abruptly, remembering his promise to mona to say nothing about the scene in the library. "it certainly means something," he winds up, a little tamely.
"no doubt," returns his mother, sneeringly.
"my dear mother," says geoffrey, coming back to the firelight, "what you would insinuate is too ridiculous to be taken any notice of." every particle of his former passion has died from his voice, and he is now quite calm, nay cheerful.
"but at the same time i must ask you to remember you are speaking of my wife."
"i do remember it," replies she, bitterly.
just at this moment a light step running up the stairs outside and across the veranda makes itself heard. every one looks expectant, and the slight displeasure dies out of geoffrey's face. a slender, graceful figure appears at the window, and taps lightly.
"open the window, geoff," cries mona, eagerly, and as he obeys her commands she steps into the room with a certain touch of haste about her movements, and looks round upon them earnestly,—some peculiar expression, born of a glad thought, rendering her lovely face even more perfect than usual.
there is a smile upon her lips; her hands are clasped behind her.
"i am so glad you have come, darling," says little dorothy, taking off her hat, and laying it on a chair near her.
geoffrey removes the heavy lace that lies round her throat, and then leads her up to the hearthrug nearly opposite to his mother's arm-chair.
"where have you been, mona?" he asks, quietly, gazing into the great honest liquid eyes raised so willingly to his own.
"you shall guess," says mrs. geoffrey, gayly, with a little laugh. "now, where do you think?"
geoffrey says nothing. but sir nicholas, as though impulsively, says,—
"in the wood?"
perhaps he is afraid for her. perhaps it is a gentle hint to her that the truth will be best. whatever it may be, mona understands him not at all. his mother glances up sharply.
"why, so i was," says mona, opening her eyes with some surprise, and with an amused smile. "what a good guess, and considering how late the hour is, too!"
she smiles again. lady rodney, watching her intently, tells herself if this is acting it is the most perfectly done thing she ever saw in her life, either on the stage or off it.
geoffrey's arm slips from his wife's shoulders to her rounded waist.
"perhaps, as you have been so good at your first guess you will try again," says mona, still addressing nicholas, and speaking in a tone of unusual light-heartedness, but so standing that no one can see why her hands are so persistently clasped behind her back. "now tell me who i was with."
this is a thunderbolt. they all start guiltily, and regard mona with wonder. what is she going to say next?
"so," she says, mockingly, laughing at nicholas, "you cannot play the seer any longer? well, i shall tell you. i was with paul rodney!"
she is plainly quite enchanted with the sensation she is creating, though she is far from comprehending how complete that sensation is. something in her expression appeals to doatie's heart and makes her involuntarily go closer to her. her face is transfigured. it is full of love and unselfish joy and happy exultation: always lovely, there is at this moment something divine about her beauty.
"what have you got behind your back?" says geoffrey, suddenly, going up to her.
she flushes, opens her lips as if to speak, and yet is dumb,—perhaps through excess of emotion.
"mona, it is not—it cannot be—but is it?" asks he incoherently.
"the missing will? yes—yes—yes!" cries she, raising the hand that is behind her, and holding it high above her head with the will held tightly in it.
it is a supreme moment. a deadly silence falls upon the room, and then dorothy bursts into tears. in my heart i believe she feels as much relief at mona's exculpation as at the discovery of the desired deed.
mona, turning not to nicholas or to doatie or to geoffrey but to lady rodney, throws the paper into her lap.
"the will—but are you sure—sure?" says lady rodney, feebly. she tries to rise, but sinks back again in her chair, feeling faint and overcome.
"quite sure," says mona, and then she laughs aloud—a sweet, joyous laugh,—and clasps her hands together with undisguised delight and satisfaction.
geoffrey, who has tears in his eyes, takes her in his arms and kisses her once softly, before them all.
"my best beloved," he says, with passionate fondness, beneath his breath; but she hears him, and wonders vaguely but gladly at his tone, not understanding the rush of tenderness that almost overcomes him as he remembers how his mother—whom she has been striving with all her power to benefit—has been grossly maligning and misjudging her. truly she is too good for those among whom her lot has been cast.
"it is like a fairy-tale," says violet, with unwonted excitement. "oh, mona, tell us how you managed it."
"well, just after luncheon letitia, your maid, brought me a note. i opened it. it was from paul rodney, asking me to meet him at three o'clock, as he had something of importance to say that concerned not me but those i loved. when he said that," says mona, looking round upon them all with a large, soft, comprehensive glance, and a sweet smile, "i knew he meant you. so i went. i got into my coat and hat, and ran all the way to the spot he had appointed,—the big chestnut-tree near the millstream: you know it, geoff, don't you?"
"yes, i know it," says geoffrey.
"he was there before me, and almost immediately he drew the will from his pocket, and said he would give it to me if—if—well, he gave it to me," says mrs. geoffrey, changing color as she remembers her merciful escape. "and he desired me to tell you, nicholas, that he would never claim the title, as it was useless to him and it sits so sweetly on you. and then i clutched the will, and held it tightly, and ran all the way back with it, and—and that's all!"
she smiles again, and, with a sigh of rapture at her own success, turns to geoffrey and presses her lips to his out of the very fulness of her heart.
"why have you taken all this trouble about us?" says lady rodney, leaning forward to look at the girl anxiously, her voice low and trembling.
at this mona, being a creature of impulse, grows once more pale and troubled.
"it was for you," she says, hanging her head. "i thought if i could do something to make you happier, you might learn to love me a little!"
"i have wronged you," says lady rodney, in a low tone, covering her face with her hands.
"go to her," says geoffrey, and mona, slipping from his embrace, falls on her knees at his mother's feet. with one little frightened hand she tries to possess herself of the fingers that shield the elder woman's face.
"it is too late," says lady rodney, in a stifled tone. "i have said so many things about you, that—that——"
"i don't care what you have said," interrupts mona, quickly. she has her arms round lady rodney's waist by this time, and is regarding her beseechingly.
"there is too much to forgive," says lady rodney, and as she speaks two tears roll down her cheeks. this evidence of emotion from her is worth a torrent from another.
"let there be no talk of forgiveness between you and me," says mona, very sweetly, after which lady rodney fairly gives way, and placing her arms round the kneeling girl, draws her to her bosom and kisses her tenderly.
every one is delighted. perhaps nolly and jack rodney are conscious of a wild desire to laugh, but if so, they manfully suppress it, and behave as decorously as the rest.
"now i am quite, quite happy," says mona, and, rising from her knees, she goes back again to geoffrey, and stands beside him. "tell them all about last night," she says, looking up at him, "and the secret cupboard."
