Death would still the aching of the weary head, the throbbing of the tortured heart, save her from tomorrow.
If she could only die, the secret of her cruel humiliation would die with her—neither Philip Desha nor Florian Gay would dare stand up in the face of the pitying world and say: “I drove poor Viola to her death.”
They would be ashamed and afraid of condemnation. Remorse would seize their hearts, their old love would return and overwhelm them with grief.
If she only could get some morphine, she could soon end her sorrow. Death would come gently, painlessly.
When they called her in the morning she would not answer, her soul would have slipped away gently in the night.
They would dress her in the beautiful bridal gown, cover her coffin with flowers, and lay her in the earth, weeping for the fair young life so untimely ended.
Viola sobbed aloud at this moving picture; but it did not deter her from the grim resolve that took possession of her distraught mind.
Stealing unnoticed to her room, she slipped on a warm seal-skin jacket and donned a cap to match, drawing a close veil over her face.
Then slipping down to a rear entrance, she left the house unperceived, by a gate the servants used, intent on reaching the drug store on the corner to procure the morphine.
Her face was deathly pale, her lips writhed in pain, her eyes gleamed wildly with her desperate purpose to baffle fate that used her so cruelly.