They were alone where kindly Doctor Meade had left them to do their writing, and Maxwell looked wistfully at the beautiful, pallid face, longing to repeat the kiss he had dared to press on her lips at the close of their strange marriage vows. But he remembered how cold and unresponsive they had been, and saw no invitation in her eyes now, so he stifled the longing, and said, quietly: “If you will excuse me a moment, I will arrange with Doctor Meade for sending off this notice to the newspapers, and see if the cab I ordered has arrived.” He hurried out, and the pale bride stood alone amid the ruin of her hopes and in the pride of her revenge. She could think of nothing but of how cleverly she had turned the tables on Philip Desha and Florian Gay. “They will be mystified by the suddenness of my marriage, and perhaps believe it was premeditated, after all,” she thought, hopefully. “What a clever man Mr. Maxwell is to have thought of this way of checkmating them. I shall always be very grateful to him, both for preventing my rash attempt at suicide and for helping me to my revenge.” And it did not occur to her half-distraught mind then that a husband had a claim to more than gratitude at her hands. “Our cab is ready. We will go home now,” he said, returning, and leading her out. The cab rolled lightly over the smooth streets, and Viola began to realize all at once the change that was coming into her own life; but she did not repent her rash marriage. In her bitter mood she would have sacrificed her own life rather than have foregone to-morrow’s triumph. They were quite silent for a few minutes; then her husband said, kindly: “Of course you realize, Viola, that the home to which you are going is very different from the luxurious one you have left? We live in a tiny cottage on Capitol Hill, and my invalid mother and my orphan cousin, little Mae Sweetland, are dependent on me for support. But my mother will soon have a pension. My father was a soldier, a captain in the Federal Army, though while we had a modest competence, mother never wished for a pension, but the failure of a bank left us penniless, and I had to leave West Point, where I was being educated, to come home and take up journalistic work to support our helpless family. But mother will receive her pension soon, with back pay, so that our home will be more comfortable then, and I can go away to Cuba with an easy mind.” Viola had listened attentively, and now she answered: “And I shall have my own fortune, too, so I shall not lack for the luxury to which I have been used.” “Not a word against my going to Cuba,” thought the handsome young husband, with a heavy heart. But he could not blame her in the least. She had not professed any regard for him; she had only accepted him in preference to the other alternative--George Merrington--“silly, lovesick boy,” as she had contemptuously termed him.