But Randolph could not remain always at Trevlyn. Hard as it was to tear himself away, the conventionalities of life demanded his absence from time to time, and other duties called him elsewhere. And it was when his back was fairly turned that the mischief-makers began their task of undoing, as far as was possible, all the good that had been done. Randolph had been exceedingly careful to say nothing to Monica about hastening their marriage. He saw that she took for granted a long engagement, that she had hardly contemplated as yet the inevitable end whither that engagement tended; and until he had assured himself that her heart was wholly his, nothing would have induced him to ask her to give herself irrevocably to him. When the right moment came she would surrender herself willingly, for Monica was not one who would do anything by halves. Till that day came, however, he was resolved to wait, and breathe no word of the future that awaited them. Lady Diana was of a different way of thinking. She had been amazed at Monica’s pliability in the matter of her engagement, so surprised and so well pleased that, for some considerable time, she had acted with unusual discretion, and had avoided saying anything to irritate or alarm the sensitive feelings of her niece. Possibly she stood in a little unconscious awe of Randolph, for certainly so long as he remained she was quiet and discreet enough. But when his presence was once removed, then began a system of petty persecution and annoyance that was the very thing to rouse in Monica a spirit of opposition and hostility. Lady Diana had set her heart upon a speedy marriage, half afraid that her niece might change her mind; she took a half spiteful pleasure in the knowledge that the girl’s independence was at last to be curbed, and that she was about to take upon herself the common lot of womanhood. She lost no opportunities of reading homilies on wifely submission and subjection. She bestirred herself over the matter of the _trousseau_ as if the day were actually fixed, and Monica’s indignant protests were laughed at and ignored as if too childish for serious argument.