“Hush!” Aunt Edwina muttered, shaking his arm, rebukingly.
Viola, as white as a sheet, her eyes dim and glazing, turned toward the door; but her aunt called out, pityingly:
“Viola, my dear, see, there is a letter on your plate waiting for you. They say it came at daylight this morning, but your door was locked, and you could not be aroused.”
The girl caught up the large, square white envelope, tore it open mechanically, and ran her heavy eyes over its contents.
Then the two who watched her heard a loud shriek of dismay. Viola tottered and fell unconscious to the floor.
Her father darted forward, seized the letter, and quickly mastered its contents.
“This explains something of the mystery!” he cried, thrusting it into Mrs. Herman’s hand, and adding, furiously:
“Viola shall never return to that villain, Rolfe Maxwell—never! never! unless it be over my dead body! I will keep her locked up in this house until she consents to apply for a divorce, do you hear?”
“Oh, Edmund!” she whimpered; but she saw that it would be quite useless to plead with the enraged father.
The senseless form of Viola was borne tenderly to her room, and her aunt and maid vied with each other in their efforts to restore her to her saddened life.