Viola rose and touched the bell, saying to the boy who answered it:
“Ask Judge Van Lew to come in here.”
In a few minutes her father appeared, his smile on entering changing to surprise at sight of a stranger.
“Papa, this gentleman is Rolfe Maxwell, but not the one we expected to find,” explained Viola, heart-brokenly.
The two men shook hands with each other, and the judge courteously offered a chair to the stranger, who said:
“I will accept it, thank you, for I have a story to tell you of some moment regarding this lady’s husband. But perhaps she had better withdraw; the conclusion may be too sad for her hearing.”
But Viola only drew her chair closer to her father, and clung to his arm, faltering:
“Let me stay, and I will try to bear the shock.”
“Yes, let her stay,” Judge Van Lew answered, with a world of tenderness and sympathy, as he turned his eyes on the wan and wasted yet noble countenance of the young man.
And his first words startled them very much: