He got up, fired with bitter anger at himself and her, and made abrupt adieus to her and her aunt, saying he had almost forgotten an appointment with Senator Hoar in the delight of their society. He hoped Viola would soon be well again and enjoying her re-entrance into society, etc.; then he tore himself away. CHAPTER VII. ’TWIXT LOVE AND HATE. When Desha was gone, Viola threw herself down among her cushions, actually sobbing aloud in her weakness. Aunt Edwina exclaimed in alarm: “There now, you have worked yourself into a nervous spell, talking over your accident. So I must give you some more of the drops the doctor left you.” “Yes, please do! I feel wretchedly ill and nervous!” exclaimed the young girl; and when her aunt had left the room, she cried out aloud: “What a cold-hearted wretch! I thought he was getting fond of me! And I--I--thought a great deal of him--more than Florian would like, perhaps, if he knew; but now I believe I hate the wretch more than I ever did before!” And the angry tears almost blistered her fair cheeks, for the visitor’s seeming indifference had cut deep. She was cruelly wounded, for she had cherished a private conviction that he was yielding to her fascinations, and the belief made her very happy, though she had not acknowledged to her own heart yet that she found him more attractive than any man she had ever met, Florian not excepted. How much pique and vanity had to do with her emotion it is hard to say. If Desha had yielded weakly to her sway, she might have despised him. We ever prize the unattainable. It is “The desire of the moth for the star, Of the day for the morrow.” Her capricious heart, thus repulsed by Desha’s assumed indifference, turned back awhile to Florian with renewed tenderness, finding in his devotion a balm for her wounded pride. Feeling her enforced stay in the house until her strength returned most irksome, she welcomed with pleasure the frequent fond letters of her betrothed, though they were very despondent in tone. Florian wrote that his father’s condition was most unsatisfactory. His partial paralysis did not yield to treatment, and he remained in a dying condition, which might terminate at any moment in his demise, or there was a remote possibility of his lingering many weeks in this unhappy state. Under the circumstances, Florian being the only son, it was quite impossible for him to leave Carlsbad. He must remain with his parents, divided between love and duty, his heart distracted with anxiety and grief.