“HAD YOU ONLY WAITED TILL THIS MORNING.”
“Farewell! I shall not be to thee
More than a passing thought,
But every time and place will be
With thy remembrance fraught.
Fruitless as constancy may be,
No chance, no change, may turn from thee
One who has loved thee wildly, well,
But whose first love vow breathed farewell.”
Viola struggled back to consciousness again, and her first words were
to ask for the letter that had affected her so terribly.
“Your father took it, dear child,” was the gentle reply.
“He must not read it, not one word of it! Go and tell him to send it to
me, Eliza!” the poor girl cried, frantically.
The maid went away obediently, but failed to return, the judge himself
coming instead, looking at his daughter in wonder, she was so pale, so
changed from the radiant girl of yesterday.
He sat down by the side of the bed, and she cried, eagerly:
“My letter, papa, my letter!”
He answered, sternly:
“I have read every word of it, Viola.”
The color flushed her pale cheeks like a rose.
“How dared you? You had no right!”
“I took the right, and I am glad that I did, for now I have an inkling
of what led to your elopement last night. Now, Viola, you must tell me
the whole miserable story.”
She felt as if she was withering under his searching gaze as he
demanded the truth.
Oh, how could she confess the keen humiliation she had risked so much
to hide from the world? Why had that wretched letter ever come?
But Judge Van Lew, in his wrath, was merciless to the willful daughter
that until today he had fairly idolized.
No criminal at the bar of justice was ever put through a more searching
cross-examination by the lawyer than now fell to the portion of unhappy
Viola.
And before she fairly realized what she had done, she was goaded into
confessing everything to her father and her aunt.
Then she faltered:
“You can not be angry with me now, papa, since you know all the bitter
truth!”
“Pooh, pooh! you made too much of a lovers’ quarrel, Viola. If you had
only waited till this morning, how happy you would have been now!”
The great gray eyes flashed proudly.
“Do you think I could have forgiven him for last night--if he had sent
a thousand letters?”
“Certainly you would. The poor fellow acted upon impulse last night,
and you must admit he had great provocation, too; but he made amends
this morning. You have been terribly punished, Viola, for your willful
coquetries.”
“I must go now,” she answered, rising quickly.
“Viola, you are never going back to your unloved husband. I must save
you from the consequences of your mad mistake.”
“Papa!” wildly.
“I repeat it. You shall never go back to him again. You shall remain
here under my charge. I shall speedily procure a divorce for you from
this presuming fellow who took advantage of your trouble to betray you
into such bonds. Not a word--you have owned you did not love him--leave
the rest to me. Why, Edwina, the silly girl is fainting again! I will
leave you to bring her to reason, for my word is law!” and he stalked
out of the room.
That evening, as he sat alone in his library, a card was brought him,
and he said, curtly:
“Show Mr. Maxwell in here.”
Rolfe Maxwell entered, pale but composed, fully anticipating an ordeal
of a crucial nature.
“Ah, good-evening, Mr. Maxwell. You have called, I presume, to receive
payment for the work you did for me?” sneeringly.
“No, judge, not at present. I came to see my wife. She is here?”
anxiously.
“My daughter Viola is here,” curtly.
“And of course you are aware that she was married to me last evening,
sir? So I hope she will grant me a short interview,” Rolfe Maxwell
humbly said in his great love.
But the judge replied, mercilessly:
“She declines to see you, sir, now or ever.”
“But what have I done?”
“Read that letter, and see what an accursed thing you have done in
sundering two fond hearts!” thundered the irate father, thrusting a
letter into his hand.
Rolfe Maxwell flushed proudly at Judge Van Lew’s overbearing manner,
but he took the offered letter in silence, and perused it with eager
eyes.
And the angry father, watching him closely, saw the proud lips under
the dark, silken mustache whiten to a bluish pallor, and the light of
the flashing eyes grow dim, while the hand that handed back the fatal
letter trembled as with an ague chill.
There was a brief, chilling silence, broken at last by the judge:
“Viola came home to me this morning, Mr. Maxwell, and confessed
everything that happened last night; the reception of this letter from
Mr. Desha, avowing his repentance and begging that the marriage should
go on today, nearly broke the poor girl’s heart.”
Rolfe Maxwell looked at the speaker, asking, abruptly:
“And she would have forgiven him--taken him back?”
“Can you doubt it? She made too much of a lovers’ quarrel in the first
place, and she ought to have known he would repent before today, as he
did, for his letter was sent at the first peep of dawn. Now you can
realize what your officious intermeddling has done!”
The young man could not refrain from answering, bitterly:
“Then you call it officious intermeddling to have saved your daughter
from the violent death she sought in her frantic despair of life?”
Judge Van Lew bit his lip, and flushed at the slight reminder,
answering:
“No; we both owe you a debt of gratitude for that brave deed, and we
should owe you more if you had persuaded Viola to come home and be
reasonable, instead of luring her into that unsuitable marriage.”
“Did your daughter accuse me of luring her into that marriage?”
The words dropped coldly from the young man’s lips, and the judge
fidgeted under his anxious scrutiny as he retorted:
“I am using my own words, not Viola’s; but still I am keeping to the
letter of what she told me. Of course she is bitterly sorry now that
she is bound to you, and you must realize that yourself.”
Yes, Rolfe Maxwell realized it with a sinking heart.
In his love and his sympathy he had eagerly lent himself to her frantic
plans for staving off the humiliation of tomorrow, and this was the way
it had all ended--in regret and despair for Viola, remorse and pain for
himself.
Speech failed him. He could only stare mutely at his accuser, taking to
himself all the blame of last night, shielding Viola by his silence.
He had been eager to lay his heart at her feet, he knew.
But she had just as eagerly accepted it, and thanked him for the offer.
“It is not for me to tell her father the truth. The blame be mine,” he
thought, loyal to his love.
Judge Van Lew continued, harshly:
“I do not wish to censure your action too severely, for I remember,
while I blame you for that marriage, that you saved her life. Yet I am
obliged to tell you that those bonds must be broken.”
“You are not willing to accept me as a son-in-law?” quietly.
“No--nor Viola--as a husband!”
Crisp, and clear, and cold, with an accent of contempt, the words fell,
and Rolfe Maxwell started as if the point of a sword had been pressed
against his heart. Then he said, huskily:
“Viola wished you to tell me this?”
“Yes, she has left everything to me. I shall take speedy steps to have
the marriage annulled and set her free.”
“To marry Desha?”
“Certainly.”
“She wishes it?”
“Of course.”
“Then I shall offer no opposition to her desires,” proudly. “Indeed, I
came here this evening to tell her that unless she wished me to stay, I
leave tomorrow for Cuba as a war correspondent.”
“A clever idea. It will simplify matters. I thank you in Viola’s name
for giving up your slight claim so easily.”
“Slight claim, sir? She is my wife.”
“Pshaw!” angrily.
“Therefore, her happiness is dearer to me than my own; and I will make
any sacrifice for her sake,” added the handsome young fellow, in a
broken voice, as he rose and stood at the back of his chair, looking
down from the superb height of his magnificent manly beauty on the
unscrupulous man who was deceiving him so cruelly.
“It is very good of you,” the judge said stiffly, feeling ill at ease
with himself at the part he was playing, but thankful that the young
husband could be imposed on easily.
But the next moment Rolfe startled him by saying, pleadingly, casting
pride aside in the anguish of his love:
“Will you not permit me a few moments with Viola to bid her good-bye?
Remember, it is a dangerous post to which I go. A war correspondent’s
life is in hourly peril if he goes to the front as I am going. Viola
may be a widow before she secures her divorce.”
The deep, musical voice quivered with the weight of his broken hopes
and scorned love, but the judge was pitiless.
“It is impossible for you to see her. She would not be willing,” he
said.
“You are sure--quite sure?”
“If I can believe her word!”
“Then she must be heartless indeed!” Rolfe burst out, indignantly, his
great eyes flashing on the proud man, as he added: “May God forgive
her for denying me the only boon I prayed for--a last word, one last
look!” and he rushed from the luxurious room out into the bleak March
night that seemed to him no colder than the heart of her on whom he had
poured out the costly libation of a true heart’s love in vain.
One bitter task remained to him, to go home to his tender mother and
confess the blighting truth that Viola had repented her hasty marriage
and returned to her father’s house to seek his protection while she
secured the annulment of her fetters, and to prepare her for his own
departure on the morrow. This accomplished, there remained nothing more
in life but grim duty. His noble heart, like many others, had been
sacrificed on the altar of a fair coquette’s capricious fancy.
Judge Van Lew sat long where Rolfe Maxwell had left him smoking and
trying to put down an uneasy conscience.
He knew that he had carried things with a high hand against the young
man who had really behaved very nobly toward Viola, and merited better
than a summary dismissal.
But he believed that he was acting in the best faith toward Viola, for
it did not occur to him that Rolfe had any chance of winning her love.
Her fainting spell on reading Desha’s letter of repentance had
convinced him that she still loved the man who wrote it. He felt that
the greatest kindness he could do his willful daughter was to help her
undo the fetters she had forged in her momentary madness of despair.
So he had steeled his heart to Rolfe Maxwell and sent him away by
the utterance of falsehoods, against which his own native manliness
revolted, but which he justified to himself because he considered them
necessary for Viola’s sake.
But in his uncertainty of the girl’s real sentiments he did not think
it necessary to inform her at all of the young man’s visit. Carrying
his authority with a high hand, he kept her locked in her own room till
the next afternoon, when she sent him an imperative message.
He was shocked at the change in his beautiful daughter since only
yesterday, and he cried out in alarm:
“Viola, are you ill?”
She answered, angrily:
“Ill of suspense and worry only. How dare you keep me locked up in
my room like this? I demand to be released, that I may return to my
husband!”
“Nonsense!”
“But, papa, I am in earnest. I must return to my new home. What will my
husband think of my remaining away so long?”
“Nothing; because he has gone away himself to Cuba, as he told you he
would do.”
“Gone--gone! Without one farewell word to me, his wife!” she almost
shrieked.
“Come, Viola, no tragedies!” her father exclaimed, sternly. “You never
pretended to be in love with the young fellow, you know, nor he with
you. Your marriage was a mistake, and I am going to free you from it as
soon as possible.”
“Papa!” wildly.
“I may as well tell you I have seen Maxwell just before he started for
Cuba,” continued the judge. “I showed him Desha’s letter, and told him
that you fainted when you read it. He agreed with me that he did wrong
to marry you, and promised that he would throw no obstacles in the way
of your getting a divorce!”
She answered, passionately:
“I tell you I do not want a divorce. I love him, and I will remain his
true, faithful wife till he comes back to me!”