“No, judge, not at present. I came to see my wife. She is here?” anxiously.
“My daughter Viola is here,” curtly.
“And of course you are aware that she was married to me last evening, sir? So I hope she will grant me a short interview,” Rolfe Maxwell humbly said in his great love.
But the judge replied, mercilessly:
“She declines to see you, sir, now or ever.”
“But what have I done?”
“Read that letter, and see what an accursed thing you have done in sundering two fond hearts!” thundered the irate father, thrusting a letter into his hand.
Rolfe Maxwell flushed proudly at Judge Van Lew’s overbearing manner, but he took the offered letter in silence, and perused it with eager eyes.
And the angry father, watching him closely, saw the proud lips under the dark, silken mustache whiten to a bluish pallor, and the light of the flashing eyes grow dim, while the hand that handed back the fatal letter trembled as with an ague chill.
There was a brief, chilling silence, broken at last by the judge: