“I came to ask you to forgive me, papa, not to listen to abuse! But since you refuse to pardon me, and threaten me with disinheritance, I can be as proud as you are! I suppose I can live without your forgiveness and without your money, too, since my dead mother’s fortune comes to me on my marriage!” “Ha! ha! does it indeed? So that is what made that fortune-hunting wretch so bold in stealing you from Philip Desha--the hope of handling your rich inheritance! But how chagrined he will be on learning that your mother made the condition that unless you married with my approval the money should revert to me! And I assure you that you will never receive one penny to reward you for your treachery. And as for the villain you have married--” “Hush!” Aunt Edwina muttered, shaking his arm, rebukingly. Viola, as white as a sheet, her eyes dim and glazing, turned toward the door; but her aunt called out, pityingly: “Viola, my dear, see, there is a letter on your plate waiting for you. They say it came at daylight this morning, but your door was locked, and you could not be aroused.” The girl caught up the large, square white envelope, tore it open mechanically, and ran her heavy eyes over its contents. Then the two who watched her heard a loud shriek of dismay. Viola tottered and fell unconscious to the floor. Her father darted forward, seized the letter, and quickly mastered its contents. “This explains something of the mystery!” he cried, thrusting it into Mrs. Herman’s hand, and adding, furiously: “Viola shall never return to that villain, Rolfe Maxwell--never! never! unless it be over my dead body! I will keep her locked up in this house until she consents to apply for a divorce, do you hear?” “Oh, Edmund!” she whimpered; but she saw that it would be quite useless to plead with the enraged father. The senseless form of Viola was borne tenderly to her room, and her aunt and maid vied with each other in their efforts to restore her to her saddened life. CHAPTER XXV. “HAD YOU ONLY WAITED TILL THIS MORNING.” “Farewell! I shall not be to thee More than a passing thought, But every time and place will be With thy remembrance fraught. Fruitless as constancy may be, No chance, no change, may turn from thee One who has loved thee wildly, well, But whose first love vow breathed farewell.” Viola struggled back to consciousness again, and her first words were to ask for the letter that had affected her so terribly. “Your father took it, dear child,” was the gentle reply. “He must not read it, not one word of it! Go and tell him to send it to me, Eliza!” the poor girl cried, frantically. The maid went away obediently, but failed to return, the judge himself coming instead, looking at his daughter in wonder, she was so pale, so changed from the radiant girl of yesterday. He sat down by the side of the bed, and she cried, eagerly: “My letter, papa, my letter!” He answered, sternly: