His answer was to stalk out of the room, banging the door in wrath, and not forgetting to lock it after him and deliver the key to the tearful Mrs. Herman, who did not know what to do between her brother and her niece, thus playing at cross purposes.
What the outcome of their feud might have been had Viola remained well, none could tell, for kind Aunt Edwina found the poor girl presently in a high fever, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes glaring, while delirious murmurs babbled over her parched lips.
A physician was hastily summoned, who declared that Viola was in the first stages of brain fever.
The terrible excitement of the past two days had culminated in illness of the most dangerous type.
The sensation caused in the social world by her remarkable elopement gave place to the excitement of her illness and the report that death was about to claim her for its own.
It was so sad, people said, that her young husband, who had parted from her the very night of the wedding to go to Cuba, should be far from her side now in her terrible extremity; but there were others who did not mind saying that she was getting punishment now for jilting Philip Desha, who went about with a face like a dead man’s, in his cruel humiliation, and was feared to be losing his mind.
As for Florian Gay, no one guessed what a part he had played in the tragedy of Viola’s life. He kept his own counsel and sought what diversion he could, soothing his pain with the triumph of the revenge he had taken on his false love.
Weeks came and went while Viola lay in her white-hung chamber, battling with the dread disease that threatened her life, and meanwhile stirring events took place outside.
As the bleak March days passed into the showers and sunshine of fickle April, and the people of the United States began to have their sympathies aroused for poor Cuba, bleeding in the chains of Spanish tyranny, news came from the beautiful island in the sea that blanched the cheek and crushed the loving heart of the poor mother waiting in her cottage home, while her only son risked the dangers of invading the insurgents’ lines in quest of reliable news for his paper at home.
For about three weeks he had electrified his countrymen by his thrilling accounts of the war and the true state of affairs in Cuba. His pen-pictures and illustrations were read and gazed upon with interest by millions of eager eyes. From the position of an unknown reporter he had leaped at a bound to fame. It was as if he had thrown himself heart and soul into his work, determined to find in its fascinating toil and danger a balm for the pangs of despised love.