“If I could see your father, I could tell him some facts that would throw a new light on this mystery.” Viola rose and touched the bell, saying to the boy who answered it: “Ask Judge Van Lew to come in here.” In a few minutes her father appeared, his smile on entering changing to surprise at sight of a stranger. “Papa, this gentleman is Rolfe Maxwell, but not the one we expected to find,” explained Viola, heart-brokenly. The two men shook hands with each other, and the judge courteously offered a chair to the stranger, who said: “I will accept it, thank you, for I have a story to tell you of some moment regarding this lady’s husband. But perhaps she had better withdraw; the conclusion may be too sad for her hearing.” But Viola only drew her chair closer to her father, and clung to his arm, faltering: “Let me stay, and I will try to bear the shock.” “Yes, let her stay,” Judge Van Lew answered, with a world of tenderness and sympathy, as he turned his eyes on the wan and wasted yet noble countenance of the young man. And his first words startled them very much: “I shall have to confess right in the beginning that for long months I have been masquerading under a false name, having, in fact, exchanged names with the man you are seeking.” Viola and her father both exclaimed aloud in astonishment, and the young man continued: “Yet I beg you to believe that I have done no wrong. It was a fair exchange made by mutual agreement.” “But where is he now--my husband?” cried Viola, anxiously. The stranger turned a pitying gaze on the lovely, anxious face, and said, gently: “Please be patient with me, dear madame, and I will come to that presently.” He had suffered untold horrors in the past months in the dreadful prison where his young life had been wasting away, but he would almost rather have endured another month of imprisonment than pierce her gentle heart with the story he had to tell. When he remembered the beauty and gladness of her face as she first entered the room, and the sad change he saw upon it now, he realized how dearly she had loved Rolfe Maxwell, and how the end of his story would blast her heart. “God help her to bear the sorrow she has come so far to meet!” he thought, wishing that he had such a beautiful love to welcome him on his return home. “Tell me as quickly as you can! I can not bear this cruel suspense longer!” Viola cried to him entreatingly, her lily hands, on one of which the gleaming wedding-ring shone so brightly clasped convulsively across her wildly throbbing heart. CHAPTER XL. “CUBA LIBRE.” “I love thee, I love thee Far better than wine, But the curse is above me-- Thou’lt never be mine! “As the blade wears the scabbard, The billow the shore, So sorrow doth fret me For evermore. “Fair beauty, I’ll leave thee To conquer my heart; I’ll see thee, I’ll bless thee And then--depart.