“Slight claim, sir? She is my wife.”
“Pshaw!” angrily.
“Therefore, her happiness is dearer to me than my own; and I will make any sacrifice for her sake,” added the handsome young fellow, in a broken voice, as he rose and stood at the back of his chair, looking down from the superb height of his magnificent manly beauty on the unscrupulous man who was deceiving him so cruelly.
“It is very good of you,” the judge said stiffly, feeling ill at ease with himself at the part he was playing, but thankful that the young husband could be imposed on easily.
But the next moment Rolfe startled him by saying, pleadingly, casting pride aside in the anguish of his love:
“Will you not permit me a few moments with Viola to bid her good-bye? Remember, it is a dangerous post to which I go. A war correspondent’s life is in hourly peril if he goes to the front as I am going. Viola may be a widow before she secures her divorce.”
The deep, musical voice quivered with the weight of his broken hopes and scorned love, but the judge was pitiless.
“It is impossible for you to see her. She would not be willing,” he said.
“You are sure—quite sure?”
“If I can believe her word!”