“Viola, I had a great shock last night, and I could scarcely sleep afterward, I was so terribly unnerved. Can you guess what I mean?”
“No, papa,” she replied truthfully.
“Then I will tell you, Viola, that I learned last night a dreadful truth about my dear little daughter whom I believed to be so good and pretty and tender-hearted. I learned that she is a heartless girl guilty of sin in the sight of God, although there is no earthly law to punish her for her folly.”
“Papa!” she gasped in horror, going deathly white with indignation, two pearly tears flashing into her great luminous gray eyes, almost black now with excitement. “Papa, who has slandered me to you? Who dares accuse me of anything wrong?”
She almost fainted when he answered, sternly and rebukingly:
“You thoughtless child, it is only the mercy of God that has saved a lost soul from being your accuser this moment at the bar of Heaven!”
Viola’s wonder and amazement only increased at this terrible charge from her father’s lips. She felt herself sinking, almost fainting, as he caught her hand, looking anxiously into her face.
In a few minutes she recovered herself, and sighed fearfully:
“I do not understand, papa.”
“You have heard nothing?” he exclaimed.