But to all of her urgings, Cecil Grant returned a grateful refusal, assuring her that the offer had placed him under as heavy obligations to her as if he had accepted it.
“I shall not consider the matter settled to-night. Take time to think it over, Cecil, and perhaps you will change your mind and accept my offer. In the meantime, I shall scold grandpapa roundly for his wicked revenge, and try to make him revoke the foreclosure. And now good-night, my dear, dear friend; and remember that one heart aches for your sorrow, and sympathizes with your distress,” cried treacherous Amber, as they parted, he to return to his unhappy mother, she to rejoice with her grandfather over their signal victory.
CHAPTER XXIV.
“WHY AM I SO WRETCHEDLY UNHAPPY?”
Amber had prosecuted all but one of her schemes to a successful fulfillment, but Harold Castello had not been so fortunate.
His greatest task lay before him in the near future.
He had secured an unwilling bride by strategy—he had now the even more difficult task of holding his prize and winning her heart.
That heart belonged to another man. How could he wrest it from his keeping?
He knew well that Violet’s faith in her lover’s fidelity was too strongly anchored to be disturbed by any falsehoods he could invent.
His momentary triumph as he rode away with the duped girl by his side, was mixed with anxiety over the thought of the recognition that would soon take place on Violet’s part, and the exciting scene that would follow.
Violet was still sobbing in her corner of the carriage, in a low, hysterical fashion, seeming oblivious of her new-made husband’s presence, and in truth she had not experienced one throb of the sweet elation natural to a young bride’s heart. Instead, there was a leaden weight of woe on her spirits, and touching all her thoughts with grim despair.