“When your mother died her private fortune was a quarter of a million, and by judicious investments I have doubled the amount. Here are the necessary papers that make you mistress of a half million dollars, and if you can make this contribute to the happiness that my error so cruelly jeopardized, I shall be more than gratified.” Viola did not feel as if the wealth of the world could add to her happiness just now, but she would not wound her father by telling him the truth. She accepted his gift in the same loving spirit in which it was conferred, thanking him with a tender caress, and saying that she should not know what to do with so much money. Her heart cried in secret: “Oh, if Rolfe were but alive to share it with me, how happy we might be! Alas! I can never be happy now, for I have learned too late that I loved him with a passion never dreamed of when I fancied myself in love with others!” CHAPTER XXXII. THE PORTRAIT. Viola’s physician had said that she must have change of scene, and at first she had rebelled, preferring to remain at home and brood over her troubles. But with the lapse of time she began to see that it would be wiser to go away. As soon as she became convalescent, her social world turned out _en masse_ to make calls of condolence on the lovely young widow. From a few she met real sympathy, from the many that veiled curiosity that drives one frantic. She could guess but too easily how they wondered and gossiped over her affairs, blaming her for jilting Desha, asking each other what sensational freak she would indulge in next. It was torture to the sensitive girl, who looked back with keen regret to those thoughtless days when she had played with men’s hearts as toys, never stopping to think until brought to bay by her father’s reprimand and the terrible affair of young Merrington. When Viola thought of that, and how narrowly she had escaped life-long remorse at his death, she always shuddered with fear and renewed her vows never to flirt again. But the carping world could not guess at her remorse and penitence, and she knew well that hard things were whispered of her on the sly, even while the speakers smiled their sweetest, pretending friendship of which they were incapable. Ah, how cold and hollow is the world, and how little truth is found in the human heart!--just here and there one pure, white, noble soul, disdaining every petty meanness, lonely on earth because its mates are so few. “Ah, the bewildering masquerade of Life, Where strangers walk as friends and friends as strangers; Where whispers overheard betray false hearts, And through the mazes of the crowd we chase Some form of loveliness that smiles and beckons, And cheats us with fair words, only to leave us, A mockery and a jest, maddened, confused, Not knowing friend from foe.”