To have added this blunder to her other trials must have driven poor Viola nearer insanity than she was already. Rolfe Maxwell continued in his deep, musical tone that had in it the soothing note we use to a hurt child: “When you know mother better, you will find that she is incapable of knowingly giving pain. She will prepare our little spare room for you presently, for I am sure you are weary and would like to be alone. In the meantime, let me take your hat and jacket away, and then I will brew you some tea. Would you not like it?” Viola assented wearily, and he waited on her with the tenderness of a lover and the skill of a woman. The bright, warm little parlor seemed very cozy after her adventures that cold March night, and she actually swallowed the fragrant tea Rolfe put to her lips, though she had fancied she would choke in the effort. “How comforting he is!” she thought mechanically through the haze of her wretched thoughts, that wandered hither and thither, but mostly toward home, wondering what they would say there when they found her gone in the morning. She had locked her room-door and put the key in her pocket on leaving, lest the inquisitive ladys’-maid should find out her flitting; so she knew her absence would not be known till morning--perhaps not even until at breakfast, when her father opened his morning paper. Suddenly she burst into a passion of grieving tears, breaking up all the stony calm she had preserved since the marriage. With a cry of dismay, Rolfe Maxwell knelt by her side, daring to draw the dark head tenderly against his breast, and Viola did not resent it; to his great relief, she simply nestled there like a grieving child, while the tears rained down her cheeks. “What is it, my dearest love, my darling?” he whispered, anxiously. She moaned piteously: “I was thinking of--of--poor papa. He will not know I am gone till he opens his paper at breakfast in the morning--and--and--it will break his heart!” “What would you wish me to do for you, dear love? Go to him or write to him? I will do anything you wish,” he promised, earnestly. “Do nothing yet--he will be too angry to listen. We must wait till his wrath blows over,” she panted in dread, drawing her face away and resting it against the soft cushion of her chair. In another moment the strange, narcotic influence of grief overpowered the unhappy girl, and she slept like a child, losing for a time the memory of her sorrows. Rolfe Maxwell gazed on her a few minutes with his passionate heart in his eyes, then pressed his lips softly on the rich waves of her perfumed dark hair ere he turned away to see that the little spare room was made comfortable for her to occupy. In the meantime, his mother’s efforts had, after a time, restored his unhappy cousin to consciousness. The girl lay still and dazed for some moments, then, as memory returned, she sobbed, miserably: