“Viola—if you will permit me to call you again by that sweet name—you received my letter sent to you on the morning of the day that was to have witnessed our wedding?”
She inclined her dark head in silent assent, and the exquisite odor of the violets on her breast floated out to him entrancingly, intoxicating his senses till he longed to crush her against his heart, whispering to her of all his love and repentance and despair.
But there was no encouragement to such daring in her distant, half-weary pose as she waited for his next words, her large, brilliant eyes fixed on his pale, intellectual face, while she wondered how it had ever commanded her love.
“Then, dearest, you know how soon and how bitterly I repented the momentary madness of that night, when in my pride and anger I left you, declining to fulfill my engagement of the morrow. You know how I repented and begged you to take me back, but you can never dream of the anguish I endured when I learned that you were wedded to another—lost to me forever.”
Viola remembered repentantly how revengefully she had planned this suffering for him and gloated on the thought of it, and was silent.
“But I will not dwell on this past unhappy year, Viola. Suffice it to say that I have suffered enough to atone for the folly of that night—enough even to win your pity and forgiveness. And you are free again, and I grasp at the bare chance of going back to the past that promised such happiness for us both. Oh, Viola, I love you still, more passionately if possible than a year ago, because your loss has taught me your value! Dearest, has your heart grown cold to me, or can you give me a little hope?”
“How much in earnest he seems, yet perhaps, like Florian, he can be easily consoled for his disappointment,” thought Viola, as she nerved herself to say, gently:
“I am very sorry you have loved me all this while, because I can not give you any hope.”
“Is this resentment at my folly, Viola? Do you wish to put me on probation, to punish me as I deserve? Do so if you will, but I shall not complain if only you will try to love me again,” Philip Desha answered her, with sad patience and wistful hope.
Viola was touched by his humility—so touched that her voice trembled as she twined her white fingers nervously together, replying: