Viola's vanity : $b or, A bitter expiation

John Stuart Mill · en
His face paled and his heart beat violently with a keen, stinging pain.
Was it jealousy of young Merrington who had wrought in her that subtle
change he had wondered over?

He said, slowly:

“What if it be remorse, not love? What if he had already received his
_congé_? What if the accident--was not an accident?”

Mrs. Wellford shuddered.

“What a terrible suggestion! Fortunately for Viola’s peace of mind, it
is not true. My husband was one of the men who witnessed the accident.
It shocked him so much, he does not like to go over the details even to
me,” replied Mrs. Wellford, innocently.




CHAPTER XII.

HIDDEN GRIEF.

    “Is it worth while to love, to waken chords
      Of deepest feeling--rapture, doubt, and pain--
    And for the chance of joy that love affords,
      To part with peace that may not come again?
    Stony the path that Love must climb, and steep,
      And far below the heights a dark abyss--
    Are not untroubled days and dreamless sleep
      Better than this?”


Desha looked with new interest at Viola as some one led her to the
piano.

So she _could_ love, the beautiful coquette, and she had learned the
lesson at last! This, then, was the secret of the change in her, the
pensive shade that touched her face. Love and sorrow had come to her
hand in hand.

He felt a great curiosity over the young man who had touched Viola’s
heart, when the proudest and the richest had sued to her in vain.

“Yet most probably he is not worthy of the prize,” he thought,
vehemently. “Some handsome, flippant youth, such as most often takes
the fancy of very young girls.”

But it gave him a pang to think that his own years numbered thirty.

“Quite an old man in her eyes, very likely,” he thought, ruefully, as
he moved a little nearer the piano to watch her face while she sang.

Her singing was one of the many rare gifts the good fairies had brought
to Viola’s cradle at her birth. Her voice was a rare soprano, full of
passion and feeling, and it thrilled every heart as she sang:

    “‘There lived a lady long ago,
      Her heart was sad and dark--ah, me!
    Dark with a single secret woe
      That none could ever see.

    “‘She left her home, she lost her pride,
      Forgot the jeering world--ah, me!
    And followed a knight, and fought and died,
      All for the love of--chivalry.

    “‘She died; and when in her last cold sleep
      She lay all pale and cold--ah, me!
    They read of a love as wild and deep
      As the deep, dark sea.’”

The song fixed itself in Desha’s memory, and the day came when he
recalled it in wonder.