Florian Gay sat listening in an awful, incredulous silence like one stiffened into stone, his dark, gleaming eyes fixed on her pallid face with its strange expression, half fear, half defiance.
She waited a minute for him to speak, then added imploringly:
“Please go away now, Florian—please, please! I am very, very sorry to have caused you pain; but it can not be helped now, and I hope you will soon get over it. Oh, Florian, there is no use staying to reproach me! Oh, go, go, go!—only go!”
Desperate with anxiety, she pointed to the door, and the wronged lover slowly rose, his burning eyes still fixed on her fatally lovely face.
“Good-bye!” she cried, in a tone of relief, as she saw that he was going.
Then he spoke in a strange and hollow voice:
“So you really mean it, Viola? This is not an ill-timed jest?”
“No, oh, no, it is the fatal truth!” she answered, quickly.
“Why did you not write to me, Viola?” his voice sharp with anguish.
“I meant to—but I feared your anger—I thought I would wait till after my marriage.”