“I am using my own words, not Viola’s; but still I am keeping to the letter of what she told me. Of course she is bitterly sorry now that she is bound to you, and you must realize that yourself.”
Yes, Rolfe Maxwell realized it with a sinking heart.
In his love and his sympathy he had eagerly lent himself to her frantic plans for staving off the humiliation of tomorrow, and this was the way it had all ended—in regret and despair for Viola, remorse and pain for himself.
Speech failed him. He could only stare mutely at his accuser, taking to himself all the blame of last night, shielding Viola by his silence.
He had been eager to lay his heart at her feet, he knew.
But she had just as eagerly accepted it, and thanked him for the offer.
“It is not for me to tell her father the truth. The blame be mine,” he thought, loyal to his love.
Judge Van Lew continued, harshly:
“I do not wish to censure your action too severely, for I remember, while I blame you for that marriage, that you saved her life. Yet I am obliged to tell you that those bonds must be broken.”
“You are not willing to accept me as a son-in-law?” quietly.