"Yes," he answered, with an air of wonder that equalled her own; "yes----" "You tell me that Royal Weldon is dead, and that you--that you----" "It was this way," he began, impelled, in his own surprise, to some form of explanation. "It was this way--you see--well, I went to Riva. That man that brought back your hat----Good God, Viola, are you not glad?" She had fallen into a chair, and he was at her feet. "Are you not glad?" he insisted. "Now, it will be----" But whatever he intended to say, the speech remained uncompleted. The girl had drawn from him as from an adder unfanged. "Assassin!" she hissed. "Assassin!" she hissed again. "What curse----" "Viola, it was for your sake." She clinched her hand as though she sought the strength wherewith to strike. And then the fingers loosened again. She moved still farther away. The hatred left her eyes, as the wonder had done before. With the majesty which Mary Stuart must have shown when she bade farewell to England, to the sceptre, and to life, Viola Raritan turned to him again: "I loved him," she muttered, yet so faintly that she had left the room before Tristrem, who still crouched by the chair which she had vacated, fully caught the import of her words. "Viola!" he called. But she had gone. "Viola! No, no; it is impossible. It is impossible," he repeated, as he rose up again; "it is impossible." He staggered to the door and let himself out. And then, as the night-air affects one who has loitered over the wine, he reeled. In a vision such as is said to visit the ultimate consciousness of they that drown, a riot of long-forgotten incidents surged to his mind. He battled with them in vain; they were trivial, indeed, but in their onslaught he saw that the impossible was truth.