Now it was Violet’s turn to stand up in astonishment, as she saw her castle in the clouds diminishing. She stared in her turn, with open lips, crying: “Do you say this? that it will never be?”
“How can you set a man’s life on the chance of the realization of such a mere dream?” asked Van Hupfeldt, irritated, saying more than was wise.
“A dream?” murmured Violet, as if in a dream herself. “Then, who is it that has sent me this?”
Thereupon she drew from her pocket David Harcourt’s unsigned note. She held it out to Van Hupfeldt, and he, without touching, leaned over and read it; apparently slowly; more than once, so Violet thought. He stood there looking at the letter an unconscionable time, she holding it out for him to read, while the man’s face bled away inwardly, as it were to death, and some power seemed to rivet his eyes, some power stronger than his effort to withdraw them.
The thought passing through Van Hupfeldt’s soul was this: “Some one knows that she was a ‘duly wedded wife.’ But who? And how? To him it is somehow ‘a pretty certain thing’; and the proofs of it ‘may sooner or later be forthcoming’; and then he will give these proofs to Violet.”
“I see, then, that it was not you who sent it to me,” said Violet at last, and, as she said it, a certain gladness, a little thrill of relief, occurred somewhere within her.
Van Hupfeldt straightened himself. His lips were white, but they smiled dreadfully, though for some part of a second he hesitated before he said: “Now, who told you that?”
“I do not, of course, know the facts,” said Violet; “but I should like to.”
“You may as well know,” said Van Hupfeldt, turning away from her. “Yes, I sent it.”