“Then she must be heartless indeed!” Rolfe burst out, indignantly, his great eyes flashing on the proud man, as he added: “May God forgive her for denying me the only boon I prayed for—a last word, one last look!” and he rushed from the luxurious room out into the bleak March night that seemed to him no colder than the heart of her on whom he had poured out the costly libation of a true heart’s love in vain.
One bitter task remained to him, to go home to his tender mother and confess the blighting truth that Viola had repented her hasty marriage and returned to her father’s house to seek his protection while she secured the annulment of her fetters, and to prepare her for his own departure on the morrow. This accomplished, there remained nothing more in life but grim duty. His noble heart, like many others, had been sacrificed on the altar of a fair coquette’s capricious fancy.
Judge Van Lew sat long where Rolfe Maxwell had left him smoking and trying to put down an uneasy conscience.
He knew that he had carried things with a high hand against the young man who had really behaved very nobly toward Viola, and merited better than a summary dismissal.
But he believed that he was acting in the best faith toward Viola, for it did not occur to him that Rolfe had any chance of winning her love.
Her fainting spell on reading Desha’s letter of repentance had convinced him that she still loved the man who wrote it. He felt that the greatest kindness he could do his willful daughter was to help her undo the fetters she had forged in her momentary madness of despair.
So he had steeled his heart to Rolfe Maxwell and sent him away by the utterance of falsehoods, against which his own native manliness revolted, but which he justified to himself because he considered them necessary for Viola’s sake.
But in his uncertainty of the girl’s real sentiments he did not think it necessary to inform her at all of the young man’s visit. Carrying his authority with a high hand, he kept her locked in her own room till the next afternoon, when she sent him an imperative message.
He was shocked at the change in his beautiful daughter since only yesterday, and he cried out in alarm:
“Viola, are you ill?”