“Who?” “That man——” Violet stopped abruptly, as memory came slowly back to her. She struggled to a sitting posture just as Mrs. Rutledge entered the room, looking pale and frightened. “My dear child!” she began at once. “Oh, thank Heaven, you are conscious! Come up to your own room, Violet, and lie down. Yes, I insist upon it.” Violet arose, and leaning upon her aunt’s arm, moved slowly from the room. Where was Leonard? Why had he deserted her? He had not returned to the library, and Violet did not know that he had been with her. Somehow, her heart sunk with a vague alarm. Something in the fact of his absence struck to her aching heart like a blow. Had he forgotten her? Then he had ceased to care for her—had never cared at all. With all the usual inconsistency of a woman, she forgot that only a few hours had elapsed since Leonard Yorke’s avowal of love for her. How could he possibly have changed in that short time? It was the wild outreaching of the loving, lonely little heart, and the intense disappointment that crushed down upon it like a vise was almost more than she could bear. Once in her own chamber, she begged her aunt and cousin to leave her. The guests had, of course, long since departed; only Leonard remained, as he felt that he had a right to do. But Violet was ignorant of this fact,[Pg 43] and so she misjudged him. Ah! if we only knew each other’s motives, how different life would be! And Violet never dreamed that Leonard had been forbidden by Mrs. Rutledge to enter her presence, and, with natural delicacy, the young man had held himself aloof. [Pg 43] Left alone in her own chamber, Violet’s first act was to lock its door against possible intruders. Then she placed the letter, which she still held in her hand, safely away in her little writing-desk; and at that moment she remembered the poem which Will Venners had given her—the pretty love verses written for the eyes of Jessie Glyndon alone. She searched in the lace of her corsage, but the poem was gone. Still, it was nothing of vital importance, and in the presence of the awful affliction which had come upon her and that other trouble which she felt certain was about to come into her life through Gilbert Warrington, she thought no more about it.
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