“You will be glad to hear that I like your goody-goody friend much better than I did when you were here. He has been very kind and attentive, sending to inquire about me every day, and yesterday sent beautiful flowers and a kind note, regretting so much it was not he who had saved my life instead of a stranger, and saying he would have been first to the rescue but for that aggravating Minnie Hyer clinging to him in hysterics and holding him back, till he actually pushed her into another man’s arms and escaped to assist me. You see, I am answering your letter right away, Florian, though I am propped up with pillows in bed; but I knew you would be anxious to hear from me and interested in--everything.” When this entertaining letter reached Florian at Carlsbad, where he had found his father very low but still alive, the poor fellow was indeed almost distracted at hearing of his sweetheart’s narrow escape from death. He longed passionately, impatiently, to fly back to her side; but it was impossible to desert his sorrowing mother and slowly dying father. “Oh, my darling, my darling, if only you would have come with me!” he groaned, as he read and reread the dear letter, hungering for words of tenderness of which he found so few. It dawned on him presently that half her letter had been devoted to Professor Desha and her unknown rescuer. “Confound them both!” he muttered, jealously, crossing out with pencil all the offending lines, and leaving only what referred to herself. CHAPTER VI. VIOLA’S REPENTANCE. “Since I must love thee--since a weird, wild fate Impels me to thy heart against my will-- Do thou this justice to the soul I yield: _Be its ideal_. Let it not blush to love. * * * Be noble, truthful, brave, Love honor more than Love, and more than me.” When Viola was well enough to receive callers again, Professor Desha was among the first announced. Since the day of her accident his heart had been in a tumult of emotion. He had realized that the interest he took in the fair coquette was deep and painful--painful because he deemed it no less than a calamity to lose his heart to one like Viola, who only played at love, and seemed to have no conception of its depth and sacredness. Although he was in his dignified way a very attractive man, he did not have enough personal vanity to suppose that he could succeed in winning her heart where so many others had failed--even Florian Gay, so young and handsome, and much richer than himself. So while she lay ill he began to read his own heart in dismay, and entered on a struggle with the passion that had stolen on him unawares, bursting into full flower that tragic day when she had gone down so swiftly through the broken ice into the black, flowing river to what might so quickly have been cruel death. She filled his whole heart and thoughts, and he stood aghast at his own weakness and folly.