“I want to beg your pardon, Venners!” he cried. “I have wronged you cruelly. I have accused you of gross wrong. I—I believed that you and Violet had eloped.”
Will started up with a wild cry, forgetting his injuries.
“You must be mad!” he panted. “I have never thought of such a thing as caring for Miss Arleigh, only as a dear, true friend. She loves you with all her heart, even as I love Jessie Glyndon. It is the dearest hope of my heart to one day win Jessie for my wife.”
Leonard caught the young man’s hand, and tears stood in his eyes.
“Can you ever forgive me, Will?” he cried. “I have a long story to tell you; and then you will understand me better. But first I am going to take you home with me to Yorke Towers—to Jessie—she will nurse you all right. After you are safe in her care, I am going to search for my lost darling—my pure, sweet Violet whom I have so foully wronged. I will never rest until I have found her and begged her upon my knees to forgive me.”
CHAPTER XXX.
A RAY OF HOPE.
Violet’s eyes wandered coldly to Warrington’s dark, saturnine face, and rested there with a look in their depths that boded him no good.
“Gilbert Warrington,” she cried, in a clear, ringing voice, which was full of scorn and detestation, “I demand that you procure my freedom from this place! Let me go free, or it will be the worse for you!”