“HOPE DEFERRED MAKETH THE HEART SICK.”
The man at the window turned about with a quick start and faced Viola.
His delighted eyes fell upon the most rarely beautiful girl he had ever
seen, her great eyes starry with joy, her cheeks and lips abloom with
excitement that set all her lovely dimples into play with welcoming
smiles as she eagerly advanced to him, crying, excitedly:
“Rolfe, dear Rolfe!”
But, oh, what a sudden and terrible change came over that lovely face
in an instant, turning all its radiance to gloom, as the twilight
suddenly settles over a landscape but a moment since flooded with the
golden glory of sunset!
It all came in an instant as she looked up into the face above her--the
face of a handsome man, pale and wan with the prison pallor, and
lighted by dark eyes gleaming out of hollow orbits--yet the face of an
utter stranger, whose expression was one of keen surprise mixed with
irrepressible admiration.
Viola comprehended that there had been some mistake, and made an effort
to pull herself together, drawing back, and exclaiming, coldly:
“I--I--really, there must be some mistake! I expected to see Rolfe
Maxwell.”
The stranger answered, respectfully:
“There is no mistake, Miss----. Pardon me, I do not know your name. I
was sent for to come to this hotel to meet some American friends who
longed to see me.”
“I sent the message; but you are not the Rolfe Maxwell I wished to see.
Can there be two of the same name?” faltered Viola, with blanching
cheeks.
“Not that I am aware of, Miss----” he began; and she supplied the name:
“Mrs. Maxwell.”
“Ah, Mrs. Maxwell!” He started, and added: “Perhaps a relative of the
man you are seeking!”
“His wife--or widow!” groaned Viola, staggering to a chair and sinking
into it, her lovely face convulsed with despair, as she thought:
“Oh, what if there has been some terrible mistake after all, and he, my
love, is indeed dead, while I have come this wretched journey all in
vain!”
The greatest enemy she had in the wide world might have pitied her
drooping so forlornly in her chair like a lovely flower snapped
suddenly from its brittle stem.
The heart of the stranger yearned over her with manly sympathy, and he
said, gently:
“I was released but a few days ago from Morro Castle, where I have
been imprisoned almost a year by the Spanish on false charges,
and threatened with death on my trial, which, fortunately for me,
never took place, my release being peremptorily demanded by the new
administration of the United States. Is this the Rolfe Maxwell you
wished to find?”
“Yes, oh, yes, but I tell you there is a strange mistake--a mystery
about this matter. I came here hoping to find my husband, Rolfe
Maxwell, a war correspondent, who was reported shot long months
ago. After mourning him as dead, a paragraph recently appeared in a
newspaper stating that he still lived, a prisoner in Morro Castle. On
my father investigating the rumor, he learned that the editors of this
powerful paper had already interested the Government at Washington in
securing his release. We came here, papa and I, to meet him and take
him home with us,” explained Viola, eagerly, in the faint hope of
having him throw some light on the mystery.
She was right, for after a moment’s hesitancy, the spurious Rolfe
Maxwell answered:
“If I could see your father, I could tell him some facts that would
throw a new light on this mystery.”
Viola rose and touched the bell, saying to the boy who answered it:
“Ask Judge Van Lew to come in here.”
In a few minutes her father appeared, his smile on entering changing to
surprise at sight of a stranger.
“Papa, this gentleman is Rolfe Maxwell, but not the one we expected to
find,” explained Viola, heart-brokenly.
The two men shook hands with each other, and the judge courteously
offered a chair to the stranger, who said:
“I will accept it, thank you, for I have a story to tell you of some
moment regarding this lady’s husband. But perhaps she had better
withdraw; the conclusion may be too sad for her hearing.”
But Viola only drew her chair closer to her father, and clung to his
arm, faltering:
“Let me stay, and I will try to bear the shock.”
“Yes, let her stay,” Judge Van Lew answered, with a world of tenderness
and sympathy, as he turned his eyes on the wan and wasted yet noble
countenance of the young man.
And his first words startled them very much:
“I shall have to confess right in the beginning that for long months I
have been masquerading under a false name, having, in fact, exchanged
names with the man you are seeking.”
Viola and her father both exclaimed aloud in astonishment, and the
young man continued:
“Yet I beg you to believe that I have done no wrong. It was a fair
exchange made by mutual agreement.”
“But where is he now--my husband?” cried Viola, anxiously.
The stranger turned a pitying gaze on the lovely, anxious face, and
said, gently:
“Please be patient with me, dear madame, and I will come to that
presently.”
He had suffered untold horrors in the past months in the dreadful
prison where his young life had been wasting away, but he would almost
rather have endured another month of imprisonment than pierce her
gentle heart with the story he had to tell.
When he remembered the beauty and gladness of her face as she first
entered the room, and the sad change he saw upon it now, he realized
how dearly she had loved Rolfe Maxwell, and how the end of his story
would blast her heart.
“God help her to bear the sorrow she has come so far to meet!” he
thought, wishing that he had such a beautiful love to welcome him on
his return home.
“Tell me as quickly as you can! I can not bear this cruel suspense
longer!” Viola cried to him entreatingly, her lily hands, on one of
which the gleaming wedding-ring shone so brightly clasped convulsively
across her wildly throbbing heart.