They gazed at her in astonishment, the mature woman and the fair young girl, who exclaimed, indignantly: “Why should Rolfe write to you when you had cast him off? When you refused to see him when he came to your father’s house to bid you farewell? When you sent him word by your father that you regretted the marriage and should sue for a divorce?” Viola dragged herself up from her knees and sank uninvited into a chair, turning her pale, startled face upon the resentful speaker, who continued, angrily: “Why should you come here and force yourself upon us when we hate you for your cruelty to our poor Rolfe?” “Yes, why?” echoed Mrs. Maxwell, dully. Viola cried out in a strained voice: “But you accuse me falsely! I did not refuse to see Rolfe. I did not know he came that night to my father’s house. I never sent him the cruel messages you repeat, for I had no other thought than to be his true and faithful wife whenever he claimed me, so help me Heaven!” They saw all in a minute how cruelly Rolfe had been deceived and sent away with a broken heart. Viola had not been false and fickle, as they believed, but the victim of an angry father’s plot to separate her from her husband--a plot that had succeeded all too well. Rolfe lay in his untimely grave, and as for her, they read on her wasted features and in her despairing eyes the story of a late remorse more bitter than death. “I understand everything now,” she added, faintly. “We were the victims of an angry father’s despotic will. A prisoner in my own home, I never knew of my husband’s call that night, nor of the cruel falsehoods he was told. No wonder he never wrote to me. Oh, God! how bitter to think he died believing me ungrateful and untrue. Pray Heaven, he knows better now!” and she buried her face in her hands, her slight form shaking with emotion. At that moving sight Mae’s gentle heart began to melt with pity and forgiveness. She hesitated a moment, then rushed to Viola’s side and clasped her white arms around her neck. “We have wronged you--forgive us!” she cried, impulsively; and they clasped each other and wept together, jealous rivals no longer, but loving friends. “Mother, I knew something must be wrong, or you would have come to see me while I lay ill so long. I suspected papa, because he had been so angry over my marriage, so I decided to come and see you. And, oh, how glad I am that I would not take Mae’s dismissal, but forced my way to your presence! Will it not be some comfort to you to know that I was true to Rolfe?” Viola said, presently, thinking--oh, so tenderly!--of Rolfe’s plaintive letter, in which he had begged her to keep up a little pretense of caring for him, just for his mother’s sake, that she might be less unhappy when he was gone. In his humility he had not guessed that Viola would not need to pretend, since unconscious love had already taken deep root in her grateful heart.