“Yes, Viola; it is quite true. Rolfe confessed it all to Aunt Margaret during the illness that followed his wetting and exposure that day. He was so modest that he would never permit his name to be known, though he almost died of pneumonia afterward.”
Viola put her handkerchief to her face, sobbing:
“I have all the more reason to love his memory.”
Meanwhile, Desha looked curiously at the lovely young stranger, and Florian hastened to present her as Viola’s cousin, while Mae added:
“I was Rolfe Maxwell’s cousin.”
They both wondered why Maxwell had not lost his heart to this artless beauty before he ever saw Viola, but of course they could not utter their thoughts aloud, and the embarrassing scene quickly ended by Viola dashing the tears from her eyes and wishing them a faltering good-bye as she moved to the door with Mae by her side.
The two men were left alone standing, with the portrait of the dead man upturned to their eyes in Florian’s hand.
“Deuced handsome beggar!” he growled; then, after a pause: “It was clever in him to go off and die like that, and leave her free, eh?”
“It seems heartless to the dead to say so,” Desha answered, generously; and then there fell an embarrassing silence.
Florian broke it by saying, abruptly: