But here Viola ceased wondering.
With a more resolute air she reached forth hand to the bundle of letters and took one out. There was distinct relief in her manner as she quickly turned to the signature and read: “Gerry Poland.”
And then, quickly, she ascertained that all the letters comprised correspondence between her father and the yacht club captain.
“But why did he hide these letters away?” mused Viola. “They seem to be about business, as the others were—the others showing that Captain Poland perhaps saved my father from financial ruin. Why should they be under the false bottom of the drawer?”
She could not answer that question.
“I must read them all,” she murmured, and she went through the entire correspondence. There were several letters, sharp in tone, from both men, and the subject was as Greek to Viola. But there was one note from the captain to her father that brought a more vivid color to her dark cheeks, for Captain Poland had written:
“You care little for what I have done for you, otherwise you would not so oppose my attentions to your daughter. They are most honorable, as you well know, yet you are strangely against me. I can not understand it.”
“Oh!” murmured Viola. “It is as if I were being bargained for! How I hate him!”
Almost blinded by her tears she read another letter. It was another appeal to her father to use his influence in assisting the captain's suit.
But this letter—or at least that portion of it relating to Viola—had been torn, and all that remained was: