“I forgive you, Ruby. You thought you were acting for my good, and I appreciate it,” he replied in a hollow voice, and left the house to spend the restless night that sent him to Viola’s side so pale and serious-looking the next morning. Beautiful Viola, who knew so well how to charm every heart, did not rest till she had chased the shadows from her lover’s brow. “You are tired of my chatter. Come, I will sing to you,” she cried, going with him to the music-room that adjoined the library. Mr. Maxwell, working diligently among her father’s books, lifted his dark, finely shaped head to listen, and the voice sounded to him like an angel’s, it was so clear and sweet. “It is Miss Van Lew, I suppose. How rarely she is gifted--queen of song and love and beauty!” he thought; for although he was a stranger to Viola, he had seen her more than once, and the story of her coquetry had reached his ears. He worked on diligently, but he did not lose one note of her sweet music, or one word of her songs. “She must be singing to some favored lover,” he said to himself, marking the tenderness that freighted her voice. By and by the music ceased, and he heard them going out of the room, but he did not know that the girl had said: “I must stop, for perhaps I am disturbing the young man in the library. Oh, Philip, would it not be great fun to pretend to go in there for a book just to see what he looks like?” “By no means, Viola. I am sure it would appear to him like vulgar curiosity,” he replied, almost sharply, bringing a quick blush to her brow. He went away soon after, and Viola left the room to go upstairs to examine some new things just arrived. Rolfe Maxwell was just going out to his midday luncheon, and they encountered each other in the wide hall. It gave each of them a queer start; but Viola rallied quickly, saying, kindly: “Mr. Maxwell, I am sure.” “At your service, Miss Van Lew,” he replied, with a distant, but most courteous bow, and a swift glance quickly withdrawn as he hurried to the door and passed out. Viola went slowly up the broad steps to her own apartments, her fair cheeks burning with the blush that had colored them at his sudden glance. “How silly I am--blushing like a school-girl under a stranger’s glance,” she thought, vexedly. “But really--what splendid, large black eyes! They gave me a positive thrill!” CHAPTER XVI. THE BRIDAL-EVE. “It is the last token of love and of thee, Thy once faith is broken, thou false one to me! I think on the letters with which I must part-- Too dear are the fetters that wind round my heart. “I deemed that I knew thee as none ever knew, That ’twas mine to subdue thee and thine to be true, Thy mask to the many was worn not to me, I loved thee--can any seem like unto thee? “I worshiped in terror a comet above-- Ah, fatal the error, ah, fatal the love! For thy sake life never can charm me again, Its beauty forever is vanished and vain!