“How she will rage at first!” he thought, but the prospect did not deter him from his purpose, perhaps only added zest to his desire to have Violet for his own. He liked the difficulty of the whole affair, and would rather have had Violet unwillingly than any other more eager bride.
With heaving bosom and flashing eyes, Violet returned to her own room, thankful that the dreaded interview was over, and hoping that never again on earth need she be called upon to face that man again.
It was but a few hours now to the time for her drive with Amber that was to end in the marriage with Cecil, her heart’s darling, and, locking her door, she proceeded to pack a hand-satchel with such changes as she would need in her little wedding journey to Niagara Falls.
Violet loved Cecil with the unchangeable love of a lifetime, and her dearest wish was to be his wife. Yet her young heart was heavy over this enforced elopement.
She deplored its necessity, and would have preferred to wait for him several years rather than incur the notoriety of an elopement, but Amber had assured her over and over that unless she married Cecil Grant this evening, Judge Camden would find means to force her to wed Harold Castello to-morrow.
Her packing finished, she unlocked the door and sat down at the window, to pass away the intervening time with a book.
But she could not interest herself in its pages, and, laying it down, she took some embroidery from her little work-basket and sewed mechanically, her eyes on the work, her mind far away.
She was restless and unhappy, despite the fact that she would soon be the happy bride of the man she adored, and who adored her in turn.
A weight of trouble, doubt, and strange foreboding lay like lead upon her girlish spirits, and now and then deep sighs heaved her breast, and tears would sparkle out upon her thick, curly lashes.
At length the embroidery dropped unheeded in her lap, and Violet sat turning her engagement ring round and round upon her finger, her blue eyes fixed on the far-away landscape.