Already he had executed a number of plans for buildings, which had been approved, accepted, and fairly well paid for, while he had applied for, and hoped to obtain, a lucrative position in the office of an eminent architect, at the beginning of the new year.
His accident had interrupted his business for several weeks, but he knew that he should lose nothing pecuniarily, for the company that controlled the incline-plane railway had agreed to meet all the expenses of his illness, and pay him a goodly sum besides; so his enforced idleness had not tried his patience as severely as it would have otherwise done.
Indeed, he had not been idle, for he had devoted a good deal of time, after he was able to be about, to the study of his beloved art. His right hand, being only slightly injured he could use quite freely, and he executed several designs which he was sure would be useful to him in the future.
His mother's sudden death, however, was a blow which almost crushed him. He had never thought that she could die at least for long years for she had apparently been in the enjoyment of perfect health.
They were sitting together one evening, and had been unusually social and merry, when Mrs. Richardson suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence, leaned back in her chair as if faint, and before Wallace could reach her side, her spirit was gone.
Wallace would not believe that she was dead until the hastily summoned physician declared that life was entirely extinct and then the heavily afflicted son felt as if his burden were greater than he could bear.
He did not look upon that loved face again until the hour of the funeral, when he went alone into their pretty parlor to take his last farewell, and found Violet there before him.
Her presence there had been "inexpressibly comforting" to him as he had said, and in the sudden reaction and surprise of the moment he had betrayed the secret of his love for her.
He was shocked and filled with dismay when, after his return from the grave of his mother, he had an opportunity to quietly think over what he had done.
He felt that he had been very unwise—that he had no right to aspire to the hand of the beautiful heiress, for he could offer her nothing but his true heart, and this, he well knew, would be scorned by Violet's aristocratic relatives.