CHAPTER XXXIX.
“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.