“It is best to be frank with you, is it not? Then believe me, I bear you no resentment for that eventful night, and I do not wish to punish you for anything—least of all for what you did that night, because—because—everything turned out for the best.”
“Viola!” incredulously.
“For the best,” she repeated, firmly; adding: “I am glad I did not marry you that day, for I found out that I did not love you after all.”
If the solid earth had opened at his feet, Philip Desha could not have been more astonished than at that declaration from Viola.
His thoughts ran hastily back over the past, and he remembered how easily she had been wooed, and how much she had seemed to love him. He decided that it was pride and pique that moved her now. He would have to overcome both before he could win her back.
A deep flush rose to her pale, beautiful face, and she cried, hastily:
“I know that you do not believe me—that you are looking back over the past and saying to yourself that I gave you every encouragement to love me, that I even led you on, and almost entrapped you into proposing that night when you fell and hurt yourself, and in my fright I said the most silly things—”
“The most charming things—words that kindled hope in my despairing heart and made me the happiest of men!” interrupted her lover, fervently.
Still blushing warmly, Viola continued:
“I actually believed myself very much in love with you, and when I tell you what a disposition I have, you will readily understand my mistake.”