Mme. Whitney gave a loud shriek and actually fainted, and the attendant, who hurried to the scene, caught but a glimpse of a white, terrified, beautiful face, and a cloud of flying golden hair. No one in that establishment ever gazed upon the face of Daisy Brooks again!



CHAPTER IX.

"Where is Miss Brooks?" cried Mme. Whitney, excitedly, upon opening her eyes. "Jenkins," she cried, motioning to the attendant who stood nearest her, "see that Miss Brooks is detained in her own room under lock and key until I am at liberty to attend to her case."

The servants looked at one another in blank amazement. No one dared tell her Daisy had fled.

The torn envelope, which Daisy had neglected to gain possession of, lay at her feet.

With a curious smile Mme. Whitney smoothed it out carefully, and placed it carefully away in her private desk.

"Rex Lyon," she mused, knitting her brow. "Ah, yes, that was the name, I believe. He must certainly be the one. Daisy Brooks shall suffer keenly for this outrage," cried the madame, grinding her teeth with impotent rage. "I shall drag her pride down to the very dust beneath my feet. How dare the little rebel defy my orders? I shall have her removed to the belfry-room; a night or two there will humble her pride, I dare say," fumed the madame, pacing up and down the room. "I have brought worse tempers than hers into subjection; still I never dreamed the little minx would dare openly defy me in that manner. I shall keep her in the belfry-room, under lock and key, until she asks my pardon on her bended knees; and what is more, I shall wrest the secret from her—the secret she has defied me to discover."

* * * * *

On sped Daisy, as swift as the wind, crushing the fatal letter in her bosom, until she stood at the very edge of the broad, glittering Chesapeake. The rosy-gold rays of the rising sun lighted up the waves with a thousand arrowy sparkles like a vast sea of glittering, waving gold. Daisy looked over her shoulder, noting the dark forms hurrying to and fro.

"They are searching for me," she said, "but I will never go back to them—never!"

She saw a man's form hurrying toward her. At that moment she beheld, moored in the shadow of a clump of alders at her very feet, a small boat rocking to and fro with the tide. Daisy had a little boat of her own at home; she knew how to use the oars.

"They will never think of looking for me out on the water," she cried, triumphantly, and quickly untying it, she sprung into the little skiff, and seizing the oars, with a vigorous stroke the little shell shot rapidly out into the shimmering water, Daisy never once pausing in her mad, impetuous flight until the dim line of the shore was almost indistinguishable from the blue arching dome of the horizon. "There," she cried, flushed and excited, leaning on the oars; "no one could possibly think of searching for me out here."

Her cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes danced like stars, while the freshening breeze blew her bright shining hair to and fro.

Many a passing fisherman cast admiring glances at the charming little fairy, so sweet and so daring, out all alone on the smiling, treacherous, dancing waves so far away from the shore. But if Daisy saw them, she never heeded them.

"I shall stay here until it is quite dark," she said to herself; "they will have ceased to look for me by that time. I can reach the shore quite unobserved, and watch for Sara to get my hat and sacque; and then"—a rosy flush stole up to the rings of her golden hair as she thought what she would do then—"I shall go straight back to Rex—my husband!"

She knew John Brooks would not return home for some time to come, and she would not go back to Septima. She made up her mind she would certainly go to Rex. She would wait at the depot, and, if Rex did not come in on the early train, she would go back at once to Allendale. Her purse, with twenty dollars in it—which seemed quite a fortune to Daisy—was luckily in her pocket, together with half of an apple and a biscuit. The healthful exercise of rowing, together with the fresh, cool breeze, gave Daisy a hearty appetite, and the apple and biscuit afforded her quite a pleasant lunch.

Poor Daisy! The pretty little girl-bride had no more thought of danger than a child. She had no premonition that every moment the little boat, drifting rapidly along with the tide, was bearing her rapidly onward toward death and destruction.

Daisy paid little heed to the dark rolling clouds that were slowly obscuring the brilliant sunshine, or the swirl and dash of the waves that were rocking her little boat so restlessly to and fro. The hours seemed to slip heedlessly by her. The soft gloaming seemed to fall about her swiftly and without warning.

"I must turn my boat about at once!" cried Daisy, in alarm. "I am quite a long way from the shore!"

At that moment the distant rumbling roar of thunder sounded dismally over the leaden-gray, white-capped water; and the wind, rising instantly into a fierce gale, hurled the dark storm-clouds across the sky, blotting the lurid glow of sunset and mantling the heavens above her in its dusky folds.

Daisy was brave of heart, but in the face of such sudden and unlooked-for danger her courage failed her. The pretty rose-bloom died away from her face, and her beautiful blue eyes expanded wide with terror. She caught her breath with a sob, and, seizing the oar with two soft, childish hands, made a desperate attempt to turn the boat. The current resisted her weak effort, snapping the oar in twain like a slender twig and whirling it from her grasp.

"Rex! Rex!" she cried out, piteously, stretching out her arms, "save me! Oh, I am lost—lost! Heaven pity me!"

The night had fallen swiftly around her. Out, alone, on the wild, pitiless, treacherous waves—alone with the storm and the darkness!

The storm had now commenced in earnest, beating furiously against the little boat, and lashing the mad waves into seething foam as they dashed high above the terrified girl. No sound could be heard above the wild warring of the elements—the thunder's roar, the furious lashing of the waves and the white, radiant lightning blazing across the vast expanse of water, making the scene sublime in its terrible grandeur.

"Rex! my love, my life!" she cried, in the intense agony of despair, "you will never know how well I loved you! I have faced death rather than betray the sweet, sad secret—I am your wife!"

Was it the wild flashing of the lightning, or was it a red light she saw swinging to and fro, each moment drawing rapidly nearer and nearer? Heaven be praised! it was a barge of some kind; help was within her reach.

"Help!" cried Daisy, faintly. "Help! I am alone out on the water!" she held out her arms toward the huge vessel which loomed up darkly before her, but the terrified voice was drowned by the fierce beating of the storm.

Suddenly her little boat spun round and round, the swift water was drawing her directly in the path of the barge; another moment and it would be upon her; she beat the air with her white hands, gazing with frozen horror at the fatal lights drawing nearer and nearer.

"Rex, my love, good-bye!" she wailed, sinking down in the bottom of the boat as one end of the barge struck it with tremendous force.

* * * * *

Leaning over the railing, evidently unmindful of the fierce fury of the storm that raged around him, stood a young man, gazing abstractedly over the wild dashing waves. A dark smile played about the corners of his mouth, and his restless eyes wore a pleased expression, as though his thoughts were in keeping with the wild, warring elements.

Suddenly, through the terrible roar of the storm, he heard a piteous appeal for help, and the voice seemed to die away over the angry, muttering waves. He leaned over the railing breathless with excitement. The thunder crashed almost incessantly, and there came a stunning bolt, followed by a blinding blaze of lightning. In that one instant he had seen a white, childish face, framed in a mass of floating golden hair, turned toward him.

One instant more and she would be swept beneath the ponderous wheel, beyond all mortal power of help; then the dark, hungry waters closed cruelly over her, but in that one instantaneous glance the man's face had turned deadly pale.

"Great God!" he shrieked, hoarsely, "it is Daisy Brooks!"



CHAPTER X.

On the evening which followed the one just described in our last chapter, Pluma Hurlhurst sat in her luxuriant boudoir of rose and gold, deeply absorbed in the three letters which she held in her lap. To one was appended the name of Septima Brooks, one was from Rex's mother, and the last—and by far the most important one—bore the signature of Lester Stanwick.

Once, twice, thrice she perused it, each time with growing interest, the glittering light deepening in her dark, flashing eyes, and the red lips curling in a scornful smile.

"This is capital!" she cried, exultingly; "even better than I had planned. I could not see my way clear before, but now everything is clear sailing." She crossed over to the mirror, looking long and earnestly at the superb figure reflected there. "I am fair to look upon," she cried, bitterly. "Why can not Rex love me?"

Ah! she was fair to look upon, standing beneath the softened glow of the overhanging chandelier, in her dress of gold brocade, with a pomegranate blossom on her bosom, and a diamond spray flashing from the dark, glossy curls, magnificently beautiful.

"I was so sure of Rex," she said, bitterly; "if any one had said to me, 'Rex prefers your overseer's niece, Daisy Brooks, with her baby face and pink-and-white beauty,' I would have laughed them to scorn. Prefers her to me, the haughty heiress of Whitestone Hall, for whose love, or even smile, men have sued in vain! I have managed the whole affair very cleverly!" she mused. "John Brooks does not return before the coming spring, and Septima is removed from my path most effectually, and if Lester Stanwick manages his part successfully, I shall have little to fear from Daisy Brooks! How clever Lester was to learn Rex had been to the Detective Agency! How he must have loved that girl!" she cried, hotly, with a darkening brow. "Ah, Rex!" she whispered, softly (and for an instant the hard look died out of her face), "no one shall take you from me. I would rather look upon your face cold in death, and know no one else could claim you, than see you smile lovingly upon a rival. There is no torture under heaven so bitter to endure as the pangs of a love unreturned!" she cried, fiercely. She threw open the window and leaned far out into the radiant starlight, as the great clock pealed the hour of seven. "Rex has received my note," she said, "with the one from his mother inclosed. Surely he will not refuse my request. He will come, if only through politeness!" Again she laughed, that low, mocking laugh peculiar to her, as she heard the peal of the bell. "It is Rex," she whispered, clasping her hands over her beating heart. "To-night I will sow the first seeds of distrust in your heart, and when they take root you shall despise Daisy Brooks a thousand-fold more than you love her now. She shall feel the keen thrust of a rival's bitter vengeance!"

Casting a last lingering glance (so woman-like!) at the perfect face the mirror reflected, to give her confidence in herself for the coming ordeal, Pluma Hurlhurst glided down to the parlor, where Rex awaited her.

It would have been hard to believe the proud, willful, polished young heiress could lend herself to a plot so dark and so cruel as the one she was at that moment revolving in her fertile brain.

Rex was standing at the open window, his handsome head leaning wearily against the casement. His face was turned partially toward her, and Pluma could scarcely repress the cry of astonishment that rose to her lips as she saw how pale and haggard he looked in the softened light. She knew but too well the cause.

He was quite unaware of Pluma's presence until a soft, white, jeweled hand was laid lightly on his arm, and a low, musical voice whispered, "I am so glad you have come, Rex," close to his elbow.

They had parted under peculiar circumstances. He could fancy her at that moment kneeling to him, under the glare of the lamp-light, confessing her love for him, and denouncing poor little clinging Daisy with such bitter scorn. His present position was certainly an embarrassing one to Rex.

"I am here in accordance with your request, Miss Hurlhurst," he said, simply, bowing coldly over the white hand that would cling to his arm.

"You are very kind," she said, sweetly, "to forget that unpleasant little episode that happened at the fete, and come to-night. I believe I should never have sent for you," she added, archly, smiling up into his face, "had it not been at the urgent request of your mother, Rex."

Pluma hesitated. Rex bit his lip in annoyance, but he was too courteous to openly express his thoughts; he merely bowed again. He meant Pluma should understand all thoughts of love or tenderness must forever more be a dead letter between them.

"My mother!" he repeated, wonderingly; "pardon me, I do not understand."

For answer she drew his mother's letter from her bosom and placed it in his hands.

He ran his eyes quickly over the page. The postscript seemed to enlighten him.

"The course of true love never runs smooth," it ran, "and I beseech you, Pluma dear, if anything should ever happen, any shadow fall upon your love, I beseech you send for Rex and place this letter in his hands. It would not be unwomanly, Pluma, because I, his mother, so earnestly request it; for, on your love for each other hangs my hopes of happiness. Rex is impulsive and willful, but he will respect his mother's wishes."

No thought of treachery ever crossed Rex's mind as he read the lines before him; he never once dreamed the ingeniously worded postscript had been so cleverly imitated and added by Pluma's own hand. It never occurred to him for an instant to doubt the sincerity of the words he read, when he knew how dearly his mother loved the proud, haughty heiress before him.

"I heard you were going away, Rex," she said, softly, "and I—I could not let you go so, and break my own heart."

"In one sense, I am glad you sent for me," said Rex, quietly ignoring her last remark. "I shall be much pleased to renew our friendship, Miss Pluma, for I need your friendship—nay, more, I need your sympathy and advice more than I can express. I have always endeavored to be frank with you, Pluma," he said, kindly. "I have never spoken words which might lead you to believe I loved you."

He saw her face grow white under his earnest gaze and the white lace on her bosom rise and fall convulsively, yet she made him no answer.

"Please permit me to tell you why, Pluma," he said, taking her hand and leading her to a sofa, taking a seat by her side. "I could not," he continued, "in justice to either you or myself; for I never knew what love was," he said, softly, "until the night of the fete." Again he paused; but, as no answer was vouchsafed him, he went on: "I never knew what love meant until I met Daisy—little Daisy Brooks."

"Rex!" cried Pluma, starting to her feet, "you know not what you say—surely you do not know! I would have warned you, but you would not listen. I saw you drifting toward a yawning chasm; I stretched out my arms to save you, but you would not heed me. You are a stranger to the people around here, Rex, or they would have warned you. Sin is never so alluring as in the guise of a beautiful woman. It is not too late yet. Forget Daisy Brooks; she is not a fit companion for noble Rex Lyon, or pure enough to kiss an honest man's lips."

"For God's sake, Miss Hurlhurst, what do you mean?" cried Rex, slowly rising from his seat and facing her, pale as death. "In Heaven's name, explain the accusations you have just uttered, or I shall go mad! If a man had uttered those words, I would have—"

The words died away on his lips; he remembered he was talking to a woman. Rex's eyes fairly glowed with rage as he turned on his heel and strode rapidly up and down the room.

"Rex," said Pluma, softly advancing a step toward him, "it always grieves a true woman to admit the error of a fallen sister—they would shield her if such a thing were possible."

"I do not believe it," retorted Rex, impetuously. "Women seem to take a keen delight in slandering one another, as far as I can see. But you might as well tell me yonder moon was treacherous and vile as to tell me Daisy Brooks was aught but sweet and pure—you could not force me to believe it."

"I do not attempt to force you to believe it. I have told you the truth, as a loving sister might have done. None are so blind as those who will not see," she said, toying with the jewels upon her white fingers.

"Daisy Brooks is as pure as yonder lily," cried Rex, "and I love her as I love my soul!"

His quivering, impassioned voice thrilled Pluma to her heart's core, and she felt a keen regret that this wealth of love was withheld from her own hungry heart. Rex had never appeared so noble, so handsome, so well worth winning, in her eyes, as at that moment.

"I am sorry for you, Rex," sobbed Pluma, artfully burying her face in her lace kerchief, "because she can never return your love; she does not love you, Rex."

"Yes, she does love me," cried Rex. "I have settled it beyond a doubt."

"She has settled it beyond a doubt—is not that what you mean, Rex?" she asked, looking him squarely in the face, with a peculiar glitter in her sparkling dark eyes.

"There is something you are keeping from me, Pluma," cried Rex, seizing both of her hands, and gazing anxiously into the false, fair, smiling, treacherous face. "You know where Daisy has gone—in Heaven's name, tell me! I can not endure the suspense—do not torture me, Pluma! I will forget you have spoken unkindly of poor little Daisy if you will only tell me where she has gone."

"Sit down, Rex," she said, soothingly; "I will not dare tell you while you look at me with such a gleaming light in your eyes. Promise not to interrupt me to the end."

A nameless dread was clutching at his heart-strings. What could she mean? he asked himself, confusedly. What did this foul mystery mean? He must know, or he would go mad!

"You may speak out unreservedly, Miss Pluma," he said, hoarsely. "I give you my word, as a gentleman, I shall not interrupt you, even though your words should cause me a bitter heart-pang."

He stood before her, his arms folded across his breast, yet no pang of remorse crept into Pluma Hurlhurst's relentless heart for the cruel blow she was about to deal him.

"I must begin at the time of the lawn fete," she said. "That morning a woman begged to see me, sobbing so piteously I could not refuse her an audience. No power of words could portray the sad story of suffering and wrong she poured into my ears, of a niece—beautiful, young, passionate, and willful—and of her prayers and useless expostulations, and of a handsome, dissolute lover to whom the girl was passionately attached, and of elopements she had frustrated, alas! more than once. Ah! how shall I say it!—the lover was not a marrying man."

Pluma stopped short, and hid her face again in her kerchief as if in utter confusion.

"Go on—go on!" cried Rex, hoarsely.

"'Lend me money,' cried the woman, 'that I may protect the girl by sending her off to school at once. Kind lady, she is young, like you, and I beg you on my knees!' I gave the woman the required amount, and the girl was taken to school the very next day. But the end was not there. The lover followed the girl—there must have been a preconcerted plan between them—and on the morning after she had entered school she fled from it—fled with her lover. That lover was Lester Stanwick—gay, fascinating, perfidious Lester—whom you know but too well. Can you not guess who the girl was, Rex?"

The dark eyes regarding her were frozen with horror, his white lips moved, but no sound issued from them. She leaned nearer to him, her dark, perfumed hair swept across his face as she whispered, with startling effect:

"The girl was Daisy Brooks, and she is at this moment in company with her lover! Heaven pity you, Rex; you must learn to forget her."



CHAPTER XI.

When Daisy Brooks opened her eyes, she found herself lying on a white bed, and in a strange apartment which she never remembered having seen before. For one brief instant she quite imagined the terrible ordeal through which she had passed was but a dream. Then it all came back to her with cruel distinctness.

"Where am I?" she cried, struggling up to a sitting posture, and putting back the tangled golden hair from her face. "How came I here? Who saved me from the terrible dark water?"

"I did," answered a young man, rising from his seat by the open window. "I saved your life at the risk of my own. Look up into my face, Daisy, and see if you do not remember me."

She lifted her blue eyes to the dark, handsome, smiling face before her. Yes, she had seen that face before, but she could not remember where.

He laughed, disclosing his handsome white teeth.

"You can not guess, eh?" he said. "Then it is certainly evident I did not make much of an impression upon you. I am disappointed. I will not keep you in suspense, however. We met at Whitestone Hall, on the night of the lawn fete, and my name is Lester Stanwick."

Ah, she did remember him, standing beneath a waving palm-tree, his bold, dark eyes following her every motion, while she was waltzing with Rex.

He saw the flash of recognition in her eyes, and the blush that mantled her fair, sweet face.

"I am very grateful to you, sir, for saving me. But won't you take me home, please? I don't want to go back to Madame Whitney's."

"Of course not," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, "when you left it in such a remarkable manner as running away."

"How did you know I ran away?" asked Daisy, flushing hotly.

"Madame Whitney has advertised for you," he responded, promptly.

Although he well knew what he uttered was a deliberate falsehood, he merely guessed the little wild bird had grown weary of the restraint, and had flown away.

"Did she do that?" asked Daisy, thoroughly alarmed, her great blue eyes dilating with fear. "Oh, Mr. Stanwick, what shall I do? I do not want to go back. I would sooner die first."

"There is no occasion for you to do either," he replied. "You are in good hands. Stay here until the storm blows over. In all probability the madame has sent detectives out in all directions searching for you."

Daisy was so young, so unsuspecting, so artless, and knew so little of the ways of the world or its intriguing people that she quite believed his assertion.

"Oh, what shall I do?" she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. "Oh, I must go back to Uncle John, and—to—to—"

Stanwick had no idea she meant Rex. He took it for granted she meant John Brooks and Septima.

"It is quite uncertain when John Brooks returns to Allendale," he said; "and I suppose you are aware his sister has also left the place—gone, no one knows whither—the Brookses' cottage on the brow of the hill stands empty."

"Gone!" cried Daisy, catching her breath swift and hard, "did you say, sir? Aunt Septima has gone—no one lives in the cottage?" Poor Daisy quite believed she was losing her senses.

"Yes," said Stanwick, smothering a low, malicious laugh, "that is what I said; but I am quite surprised that it is news to you. You are all alone in the world, you see. Of course you could not go back to Allendale. You can do no better than stay in your present quarters for at least a week or so, until you fully recover from your mad frolic on the water and gain a little strength."

* * * * *

"Where am I?" asked Daisy, "and how did I get here? and who lives here?"

"One question at a time, if you please," laughed Stanwick, gazing admiringly at the beautiful, questioning, eager face.

"I suppose," he began, with provoking coolness, "you have been filling that little head of yours with romantic ideas of running away from school, and sailing far out to sea, and straight into the arms of some handsome hero who would save you, and would carry you off to some castle, and turn out to be a prince in disguise! That's the way they usually turn out, isn't it? But you found the theory did not work very well in real life, and your little romance came near costing you your life—eh, Miss Daisy? As for the second question, I rescued you, just in the nick of time, by jumping into the turbulent waves and bearing you out of harm's way and keeping that little romantic head of yours above water until the barge could be stopped, and you were then brought on board. I recognized you at once," he continued; "and to prevent suspicion and inquiry, which would have been sure to follow, I claimed you—as my wife! Do not be alarmed," he said, as a sharp, horrified cry rose to the red lips. "I simply did that in order to protect you from being returned at once in bitter disgrace to Madame Whitney's. Not knowing what else to do with you when the boat landed, I brought you here, and here you have been ever since, quite unconscious up to date."

"Was it last night you brought me here?" asked Daisy.

"You are not good at guessing. You have been here two nights and two days."

"But who lives here?" persisted Daisy. "Is this your house?"

"Oh, dear, no," laughed Stanwick. "Upon my honor, you are not very complimentary to my taste," he said, glancing around the meagerly furnished apartment. "As near as I can understand it, the house is occupied by three grim old maids. Each looks to be the twin of the other. This was the first shelter I could find, and I had carried you all the way from the boat in my arms, and under the circumstances, after much consulting, they at last agreed to allow you to remain here. Now you have the whole story in a nutshell."

"Why did they not send to Septima to come to me?" she asked presently.

"Because they thought you were with your best protector—your husband."

"Did you tell them that here, too?" asked Daisy, growing white and ill with a dizzy horror. "Oh, Mr. Stanwick, send for them at once, and tell them it is not so, or I must!" she added, desperately.

"You must do nothing of the kind, you silly child. Do you suppose they would have sheltered you for a single instant if they had not believed you were my wife? You do not know the ways of the world. Believe me, it was the only course I could pursue, in that awkward dilemma, without bringing disgrace and detection upon you."

As if in answer to the question that was trembling upon Daisy's lips, he continued:

"I am stopping at a boarding-place some little distance from here. This is not Baltimore, but a little station some sixty miles from there. When you are well and strong you may go where you please, although I frankly own the situation is by no means an unpleasant one for me. I would be willing to stay here always—with you."

"Sir!" cried Daisy, flushing as red as the climbing roses against the window, her blue eyes blazing up with sudden fire, "do you mean to insult me?"

"By no means," responded Lester Stanwick, eagerly. "Indeed, I respect and honor you too much for that. Why, I risked my life to save yours, and shielded your honor with my name. Had I been your husband in very truth I could not have done more."

Daisy covered her face with her hands.

"I thank you very much for saving me," she sobbed, "but won't you please go away now and leave me to myself?"

Roue and villain as Lester Stanwick was, he could not help feeling touched by the innocence and beauty of little Daisy, and from that instant he loved her with a wild, absorbing, passionate love, and he made a vow, then and there, that he would win her.

From their boyhood up Rex and Lester had been rivals. At college Rex had carried off the honors with flying colors. Pluma Hurlhurst, the wealthy heiress, had chosen Rex in preference to himself. He stood little chance with bright-eyed maidens compared with handsome, careless, winning Rex Lyon.

Quite unobserved, he had witnessed the meeting between Rex and Daisy at the fountain, and how tenderly he clasped her in his arms as they waltzed together in the mellow light, to the delicious strains of the "Blue Danube," and knowing Rex as well as he did, he knew for the first time in life Rex's heart was touched.

"It would be a glorious revenge," Stanwick had muttered to himself, "if I could win her from him." Then a sordid motive of revenge alone prompted him—now he was beginning to experience the sweet thrillings of awakened love himself. Yes, he had learned to love Daisy for her own sweet self.

He smiled as he thought of the last words Pluma Hurlhurst had said to him: "Revenge is sweet, Lester, when love is turned to bitter hatred. Help me to drag Rex Lyon's pride as low as he has this night dragged mine, and you shall have my hand as your reward. My father is an invalid—he can not live much longer—then you will be master of Whitestone Hall." As he had walked down the broad gravel path, running his eye over the vast plantation stretching afar on all sides, like a field of snow, as the moonlight fell upon the waving cotton, he owned to himself it was a fair domain well worth the winning.

But as he stood there, gazing silently down upon little Daisy's face—how strange it was—he would have given up twenty such inheritances for the hope of making sweet little Daisy Brooks his wife.

It was well for Daisy Brooks he little dreamed of the great barrier which lay between them, shutting him out completely from all thoughts of love in Daisy's romantic heart.



CHAPTER XII.

"Please go away," sobbed Daisy. "Leave me to myself, and I will get up."

"Very well," said Stanwick, involuntarily raising her little white hands courteously to his lips; "and remember, I warn you, for your own sake, not to dispute the assertion I have made—that you are my wife."

"Why?" asked Daisy, wistfully. "They will forgive me when I tell them how it all came about."

"You do not know women's ways," he replied. "They would hand you over at once to the authorities; you would bring disgrace and ruin upon your own head, and bitter shame to John Brooks's heart. I know him well enough to believe he would never forgive you. On the other hand, when you feel well enough to depart, you can simply say you are going away with your husband. No one will think of detaining you; you will be free as the wind to go where you will. It will cost you but a few words. Remember, there are occasions when it is necessary to prevaricate in order to prevent greater evils—this is one of them."

Daisy could not dispute this specious logic, and she suffered herself to be persuaded against her will and better judgment. She was dreadfully homesick, poor little soul! and to go back to Allendale, to Rex, was the one wish of her heart. But would he clasp her in his arms if a shadow of disgrace blotted her fair name? She would go back to him and kneel at his feet, and tell him why she had left Mme. Whitney's. She certainly meant to tell him of all that followed, and, with her little, warm cheek pressed close to his, ask him if she had done right.

At that moment the door of an adjoining room opened, and Lester observed the three ladies standing in a row in the door-way. He knew that three pairs of eyes were regarding him intently through as many pairs of blue glasses.

"Good-bye, my little wife," he said, raising his voice for their benefit; "I'm off now. I shall see you again to-morrow;" and, before Daisy had the least idea of his intentions, he had pressed a kiss upon her rosy lips and was gone.

The three ladies quickly advanced to the couch upon which Daisy reclined.

"We are very glad to find you are so much better this morning," they exclaimed, all in a breath. "Your husband has been almost demented about you, my dear."

They wondered why the white face on the pillow turned so pink, then faded to a dead white, and why the tear-drops started to her beautiful blue eyes.

"I was telling my sisters," pursued one of the ladies, softly, "you were so young to be married—hardly more than a child. How old are you, my dear—not more than sixteen, I suppose?"

"Sixteen and a few months," answered Daisy.

"How long have you been married, my dear?" questioned another of the sisters.

A great sob rose in Daisy's throat as she remembered it was just a week that very day since she had stood in the dim old parlor at the rectory, while Rex clasped her hands, his handsome, smiling eyes gazing so lovingly down upon her, while the old minister spoke the words that bound them for life to each other. It almost seemed to Daisy that long years had intervened, she had passed through so much since then.

"Just a week to-day, madame," she made answer.

"Why, you are a bride, then," they all chorused. "Ah! that accounts for your husband's great anxiety about you. We all agreed we had never seen a husband more devoted!"

Daisy hid her face in the pillow. She thought she would go mad upon being so cruelly misunderstood. Oh! if she had only dared throw herself into their arms and sob out her heartaches on their bosoms. Yes, she was a bride, but the most pitifully homesick, weary, disheartened little girl-bride that ever the sun shone on in the wide, wild world.

They assisted Daisy to arise, brushing out her long, tangled, golden curls, declaring to one another the pretty little creature looked more like a merry, rosy-cheeked school-girl than a little bride-wife, in her pink-and-white dotted muslin, which they had in the meantime done up for her with their own hands.

They wondered, too, why she never asked for her husband, and she looked almost ready to faint when they spoke of him.

"There seems to be something of a mystery here," remarked one of the sisters when the trio were alone. "If that child is a bride, she is certainly not a happy one. I do not like to judge a fellow-creature—Heaven forbid! but I am sorely afraid all is not right with her. Twice this afternoon, entering the room quietly, I have found her lying face downward on the sofa, crying as if her heart would break! I am sorely puzzled!"

And the flame of suspicion once lighted was not easily extinguished in the hearts of the curious spinsters.

"'Won't you tell me your sorrow, my dear?' I said.

"'No, no; I dare not!' she replied.

"'Will you not confide in me, Mrs. Stanwick?' I asked.

"She started up wildly, throwing her arms about my neck.

"'Won't you please call me Daisy?' she sobbed, piteously; 'just Daisy—nothing else.'

"'Certainly, my dear, if you wish it,' I replied. 'There is one question I would like to ask you, Daisy—you have told me your mother is dead?'

"'Yes,' she said, leaning her golden head against the window, and watching the white clouds overhead in the blue sky—'my poor, dear mother is dead!'

"'Then will you answer me truthfully the question I am about to ask you, Daisy, remembering your mother up in heaven hears you.'

"She raised her blue eyes to mine.

"'I shall answer truthfully any question you may put to me,' she said; 'if—if—it is not about Mr. Stanwick.'

"'It is about yourself, Daisy,' I said, gravely. 'Tell me truthfully, child, are you really a wife?'

"She caught her breath with a hard, gasping sound; but her blue eyes met mine unflinchingly.

"'Yes, madame, I am, in the sight of God and man; but I am such an unhappy one. I can not tell you why. My heart is breaking. I want to go back to Allendale!'

"'Is that where you live, Daisy?'

"'Yes,' she said; 'I am going to start to-morrow morning.'"

"How strange!" echoed the two sisters.

"The strangest part of the affair is yet to come. The little creature drew from her pocket a twenty-dollar bill.

"'You have been kind and good to me,' she said. I must take enough to carry me back to Allendale. You shall have all the rest, madame.'

"'Put your money back into your pocket, Daisy,' I replied. 'Your husband has already paid your bill. He begged me to accept it in advance on the night you came.'

"She gave a great start, and a flood of hot color rushed over her face.

"'I—I—did not know,' she said, faintly, 'how very good Mr. Stanwick has been to me.'"

The three sisters looked at one another in silent wonder over the rims of their spectacles and shook their heads ominously.

* * * * *

Dear reader, we must return at this period to Rex—poor, broken-hearted Rex—whom we left in the company of Pluma Hurlhurst in the spacious parlor of Whitestone Hall.

"Daisy Brooks is at this moment with Lester Stanwick! You must learn to forget her, Rex," she repeated, slowly.

A low cry escaped from Rex's lips, and he recoiled from her as though she had struck him a heavy blow. His heart seemed fairly stifled in his bosom, and he trembled in every limb with repressed excitement.

"Here is a letter from Madame Whitney," she continued. "Read it for yourself, Rex. You see, she says: 'Daisy fled. It has been since ascertained she went to Elmwood, a station some sixty miles from here, where she now is, at the cottage of the Burton sisters, in company with her lover. I shall not attempt to claim her—her retribution must come from another source.'"

The words seemed to stand out in letters of fire.

"Oh, my little love," he cried, "there must be some terrible mistake! My God! my God! there must be some horrible mistake—some foul conspiracy against you, my little sweetheart, my darling love!"

He rose to his feet with a deep-drawn sigh, his teeth shut close, his heart beating with great strangling throbs of pain. Strong and brave as Rex was, this trouble was almost more than he could bear.

"Where are you going, Rex?" said Pluma, laying a detaining hand upon his arm.

"I am going to Elmwood," he cried, bitterly, "to prove this accusation is a cruel falsehood. Daisy has no lover; she is as sweet and pure as Heaven itself! I was mad to doubt her for a single instant."

"Judge for yourself, Rex—seeing is believing," said Pluma, maliciously, a smoldering vengeance burning in her flashing eyes, and a cold, cruel smile flitting across her face, while she murmured under her breath: "Go, fond, foolish lover; your fool's paradise will be rudely shattered—ay, your hopes crushed worse than mine are now, for your lips can not wear a smile like mine when your heart is breaking. Good-bye, Rex," she said, "and remember, in the hour when sorrow strikes you keenest, turn to me; my friendship is true, and shall never fail you."

Rex bowed coldly and turned away; his heart was too sick for empty words, and the heavy-hearted young man, who slowly walked down the graveled path away from Whitestone Hall in the moonlight, was as little like the gay, handsome Rex of one short week ago as could well be imagined.

There was the scent of roses and honeysuckles in the soft wind; and some sweet-voiced bird awakened from sleep, and fancying it was day, swung to and fro amid the green foliage, filling the night with melody. The pitying stars shone down upon him from the moonlighted heavens; but the still, solemn beauty of the night was lost upon Rex. He regretted—oh! so bitterly—that he had parted from his sweet little girl-bride, fearing his mother's scornful anger, or through a sense of mistaken duty.

"Had they but known little Daisy is my wife, they would have known how impossible was their accusation that she was with Lester Stanwick."

He shuddered at the very thought of such a possibility.

The thought of Daisy, his little girl-bride, being sent to school amused him.

"Poor little robin!" he murmured. "No wonder she flew from her bondage when she found the cage-door open! How pleased the little gypsy will be to see me!" he mused. "I will clasp the dear little runaway in my arms, and never let her leave me again! Mother could not help loving my little Daisy if she were once to see her, and sister Birdie would take to her at once."

The next morning broke bright and clear; the sunshine drifted through the green foliage of the trees, and crimson-breasted robins sung their sweetest songs in the swaying boughs of the blossoming magnolias; pansies and buttercups gemmed the distant hill-slope, and nature's fountain—a merry, babbling brook—danced joyously through the clover banks. No cloud was in the fair, blue, smiling heavens; no voice of nature warned poor little Daisy, as she stood at the open window drinking in the pure, sweet beauty of the morning of the dark clouds which were gathering over her innocent head, and of the storm which was so soon to burst upon her in all its fury. Daisy turned away from the window with a little sigh. She did not see a handsome, stalwart figure hurrying down the hill-side toward the cottage. How her heart would have throbbed if she had only known Rex (for it was he) was so near her! With a strangely beating heart he advanced toward the little wicket gate, at which stood one of the sisters, busily engaged pruning her rose-bushes.

"Can you tell me, madame, where I can find the Misses Burton's cottage?" he asked, courteously lifting his hat.

"This is the Burton cottage," she answered, "and I am Ruth Burton. What can I do for you?"

"I would like to see Daisy Brooks, if you please. She is here, I believe?" he said, questioningly. "May I come in?"

Rex's handsome, boyish face and winning smile won their way straight to the old lady's heart at once.

"Perhaps you are the young lady's brother, sir? There is evidently some mistake, however, as the young lady's name is Stanwick—Daisy Stanwick. Her husband, Lester Stanwick—I believe that is the name—is also in Elmwood."

All the color died out of Rex's handsome face and the light from his brown eyes. He leaned heavily against the gate-post. The words seemed shrieked on the air and muttered on the breeze.

"Daisy is not his wife! My God, madame!" he cried, hoarsely, "she could not be!"

"It is very true," replied the old lady, softly. "I have her own words for it. There may be some mistake, as you say," she said, soothingly, noting the death-like despair that settled over the noble face. "She is a pretty, fair, winsome little creature, blue-eyed, and curling golden hair, and lives at Allendale. She is certainly married. I will call her. She shall tell you so herself. Daisy—Mrs. Stanwick—come here, dear," she called.

"I am coming, Miss Ruth," answered a sweet, bird-like voice, which pierced poor Rex's heart to the very core as a girlish little figure bounded through the open door-way, out into the brilliant sunshine.

"God pity me!" cried Rex, staggering forward. "It is Daisy—my wife!"



CHAPTER XIII.

Rex had hoped against hope.

"Daisy!" he cried, holding out his arms to her with a yearning, passionate cry. "My God! tell me it is false—you are not here with Stanwick—or I shall go mad! Daisy, my dear little sweetheart, my little love, why don't you speak?" he cried, clasping her close to his heart and covering her face and hair and hands with passionate, rapturous kisses.

Daisy struggled out of his embrace, with a low, broken sob, flinging herself on her knees at his feet with a sharp cry.

"Daisy," said the old lady, bending over her and smoothing back the golden hair from the lovely anguished face, "tell him the truth, dear. You are here with Mr. Stanwick; is it not so?"

The sudden weight of sorrow that had fallen upon poor, hapless Daisy seemed to paralyze her very senses. The sunshine seemed blotted out, and the light of heaven to grow dark around her.

"Yes," she cried, despairingly; and it almost seemed to Daisy another voice had spoken with her lips.

"This Mr. Stanwick claims to be your husband?" asked the old lady, solemnly.

"Yes," she cried out again, in agony, "but, Rex, I—I—"

The words died away on her white lips, and the sound died away in her throat. She saw him recoil from her with a look of white, frozen horror on his face which gave place to stern, bitter wrath. Slowly and sadly he put her clinging arms away from him, folding his arms across his breast with that terrible look upon his face such as a hero's face wears when he has heard, unflinchingly, his death sentence—the calm of terrible despair.

"Daisy," he said, proudly, "I have trusted you blindly, for I loved you madly, passionately. I would as soon believe the fair smiling heavens that bend above us false as you whom I loved so madly and so well. I was mad to bind you with such cruel, irksome bonds when your heart was not mine but another's. My dream of love is shattered now. You have broken my heart and ruined and blighted my life. God forgive you, Daisy, for I never can! I give you back your freedom; I release you from your vows; I can not curse you—I have loved you too well for that; I cast you from my heart as I cast you from my life; farewell, Daisy—farewell forever!"

She tried to speak, but her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. Oh, pitying Heaven, if she could only have cried out to you and the angels to bear witness and proclaim her innocence! The strength to move hand or foot seemed suddenly to have left her. She tried hard, oh! so hard, to speak, but no sound issued from her white lips. She felt as one in a horrible trance, fearfully, terribly conscious of all that transpired around her, yet denied the power to move even a muscle to defend herself.

"Have you anything to say to me, Daisy?" he asked, mournfully, turning from her to depart.

The woful, terrified gaze of the blue eyes deepened pitifully, but she spoke no word, and Rex turned from her—turned from the girl-bride whom he loved so madly, with a bursting, broken heart, more bitter to bear than death itself—left her alone with the pitying sunlight falling upon her golden hair, and her white face turned up to heaven, silently praying to God that she might die then and there.

Oh, Father above, pity her! She had no mother's gentle voice to guide her, no father's strong breast to weep upon, no sister's soothing presence. She was so young and so pitifully lonely, and Rex had drifted out of her life forever, believing her—oh, bitterest of thoughts!—believing her false and sinful.

Poor little Daisy was ignorant of the ways of the world; but a dim realization of the full import of the terrible accusation brought against her forced its way to her troubled brain.

She only realized—Rex—her darling Rex, had gone out of her life forever.

Daisy flung herself face downward in the long, cool, waving green grass where Rex had left her.

"Daisy," called Miss Burton, softly, "it is all over; come into the house, my dear."

But she turned from her with a shuddering gasp.

"In the name of pity, leave me to myself," she sobbed; "it is the greatest kindness you can do me."

And the poor old lady who had wrought so much sorrow unwittingly in those two severed lives, walked slowly back to the cottage, with tears in her eyes, strongly impressed there must be some dark mystery in the young girl's life who was sobbing her heart out in the green grass yonder; and she did just what almost any other person would have done under the same circumstances—sent immediately for Lester Stanwick. He answered the summons at once, listening with intense interest while the aged spinster briefly related all that had transpired; but through oversight or excitement she quite forgot to mention Rex had called Daisy his wife.

"Curse him!" he muttered, under his breath, "I—I believe the girl actually cares for him."

Then he went out to Daisy, lying so still and lifeless among the pink clover and waving grass.

Poor Daisy! Poor, desperate, lonely, struggling child! All this cruel load of sorrow, crushing her girlish heart, and blighting her young life, and she so innocent, so entirely blameless, yet such a plaything of fate.

"Daisy," he said, bending over her and lifting the slight form in his arms, "they tell me some one has been troubling you. Who has dared annoy you? Trust in me, Daisy. What is the matter?"

Lester Stanwick never forgot the white, pitiful face that was raised to his.

"I want to die," she sobbed. "Oh, why did you not leave me to die in the dark water? it was so cruel of you to save me."

"Do you want to know why I risked my life to save you, Daisy? Does not my every word and glance tell you why?" The bold glance in his eyes spoke volumes. "Have you not guessed that I love you, Daisy?"

"Oh, please do not talk to me in that way, Mr. Stanwick," she cried, starting to her feet in wild alarm. "Indeed you must not," she stammered.

"Why not?" he demanded, a merciless smile stirring beneath his heavy mustache. "I consider that you belong to me. I mean to make you my wife in very truth."

Daisy threw up her hands in a gesture of terror heart-breaking to see, shrinking away from him in quivering horror, her sweet face ashen pale.

"Oh, go away, go away!" she cried out. "I am growing afraid of you. I could never marry you, and I would not if I could. I shall always be grateful to you for what you have done for me, but, oh, go away, and leave me now, for my trouble is greater than I can bear!"

"You would not if you could," he repeated, coolly, smiling so strangely her blood seemed to change to ice in her veins. "I thank you sincerely for your appreciation of me. I did not dream, however, your aversion to me was so deeply rooted. That makes little difference, however. I shall make you my wife this very day all the same; business, urgent business, calls me away from Elmwood to-day. I shall take you with me as my wife."

She heard the cruel words like one in a dream.

"Rex! Rex!" she sobbed, under her breath. Suddenly she remembered Rex had left her—she was never to look upon his face again. He had left her to the cold mercies of a cruel world. Poor little Daisy—the unhappy, heart-broken girl-bride—sat there wondering what else could happen to her. "God has shut me out from His mercy," she cried; "there is nothing for me to do but to die."

"I am a desperate man, Daisy," pursued Stanwick, slowly. "My will is my law. The treatment you receive at my hands depends entirely upon yourself—you will not dare defy me!" His eyes fairly glowed with a strange fire that appalled her as she met his passionate glance.

Then Daisy lifted up her golden head with the first defiance she had ever shown, the deathly pallor deepening on her fair, sweet, flower-like face, and the look of a hunted deer at bay in the beautiful velvety agonized eyes, as she answered:

"I refuse to marry you, Mr. Stanwick. Please go away and leave me in peace."

He laughed mockingly.

"I shall leave you for the present, my little sweetheart," he said, "but I shall return in exactly fifteen minutes. Hold yourself in readiness to receive me then; I shall not come alone, but bring with me a minister, who will be prepared to marry us. I warn you not to attempt to run away," he said, interpreting aright the startled glance she cast about her. "In yonder lane stands a trusty sentinel to see that you do not leave this house. You have been guarded thus since you entered this house; knowing your proclivity to escape impending difficulties, I have prepared accordingly. You can not escape your fate, my little wild flower!"

"No minister would marry an unwilling bride—he could not. I would fling myself at his feet and tell him all, crying out I was—I was—"

"You will do nothing of the kind," he interrupted, a hard, resolute look settling on his face. "I would have preferred winning you by fair means, if possible; if you make it impossible I shall be forced to a desperate measure. I had not intended adopting such stringent measures, except in an extreme case. Permit me to explain what I shall do to prevent you from making the slightest outcry." As he spoke he drew from his pocket a small revolver heavily inlaid with pearl and silver. "I shall simply hold this toy to your pretty forehead to prevent a scene. The minister will be none the wiser—he is blind? Do you think," he continued, slowly, "that I am the man to give up a thing I have set my heart upon for a childish whim?"

"Believe me," cried Daisy, earnestly, "it is no childish whim. Oh, Mr. Stanwick, I want to be grateful to you—why will you torture me until I hate you?"

"I will marry you this very day, Daisy Brooks, whether you hate me or love me. I have done my best to gain your love. It will come in time; I can wait for it."

"You will never make me love you," cried Daisy, covering her face with her hands; "do not hope it—and the more you talk to me the less I like you. I wish you would go away."

"I shall not despair," said Stanwick, with a confident smile. "I like things which I find it hard to obtain—that was always one of my characteristics—and I never liked you so well as I like you now, in your defiant anger, and feel more determined than ever to make you my own."

Suddenly a new thought occurred to him as he was about to turn from her.

"Why, how stupid of me!" he cried. "I could not bring the parson here, for they think you my wife already. I must change my plan materially by taking you to the parsonage. We can go from here directly to the station. I shall return in exactly fifteen minutes with a conveyance. Remember, I warn you to make no outcry for protection in the meantime. If you do I shall say you inherited your mother's malady. I am well acquainted with your history, you see." He kissed his finger-tips to her carelessly. "Au revoir, my love, but not farewell," he said, lightly, "until we meet to be parted nevermore," and, with a quick, springy step Lester Stanwick walked rapidly down the clover-bordered path on his fatal errand.

In the distance the little babbling brook sung to her of peace and rest beneath its curling, limpid waters.

"Oh, mother, mother," she cried, "what was the dark sorrow that tortured your poor brain, till it drove you mad—ay, mad—ending in death and despair? Why did you leave your little Daisy here to suffer so? I feel such a throbbing in my own poor brain—but I must fly anywhere, anywhere, to escape this new sorrow. God has forgotten me." She took one step forward in a blind, groping, uncertain way. "My last ray of hope has died out," she cried as the memory of his cruel words came slowly back to her, so mockingly uttered—"the minister would be none the wiser—he is blind."



CHAPTER XIV.

When Lester Stanwick returned to the cottage he found that quite an unexpected turn of events had transpired. Miss Burton had gone out to Daisy—she lay so still and lifeless in the long green grass.

"Heaven bless me!" she cried, in alarm, raising her voice to a pitch that brought both of the sisters quickly to her side. "Matilda, go at once and fetch the doctor. See, this child is ill, her cheeks are burning scarlet and her eyes are like stars."

At that opportune moment they espied the doctor's carriage proceeding leisurely along the road.

"Dear me, how lucky," cried Ruth, "Doctor West should happen along just now. Go to the gate, quick, Matilda, and ask him to stop."

The keen eyes of the doctor, however, had observed the figure lying on the grass and the frantic movements of the three old ladies bending over it, and drew rein of his own accord to see what was the matter.

He drew back with a cry of surprise as his eyes rested on the beautiful flushed face of the young girl lying among the blue harebells at his feet.

"I am afraid this is a serious case," he said, thoughtfully, placing his cool hand on her burning forehead; "the child has all the symptoms of brain fever in its worst form, brought on probably through some great excitement." The three ladies looked at one another meaningly. "She must be taken into the house and put to bed at once," he continued, authoritatively, lifting the slight figure in his strong arms, and gazing pityingly down upon the beautiful flushed face framed in its sheen of golden hair resting against his broad shoulders.

The doctor was young and unmarried and impressible; and the strangest sensation he had ever experienced thrilled through his heart as the blue, flaring eyes met his and the trembling red lips incoherently beseeched him to save her, hide her somewhere, anywhere, before the fifteen minutes were up.

A low muttered curse burst from Stanwick's lips upon his return, as he took in the situation at a single glance.

As Daisy's eyes fell upon Stanwick's face she uttered a piteous little cry:

"Save me from him—save me!" she said, hysterically, growing rapidly so alarmingly worse that Stanwick was forced to leave the room, motioning the doctor to follow him into the hall.

"The young lady is my wife," he said, with unflinching assurance, uttering the cruel falsehood, "and we intend leaving Elmwood to-day. I am in an uncomfortable dilemma. I must go, yet I can not leave my—my wife. She must be removed, doctor; can you not help me to arrange it in some way?"

"No, sir," cried the doctor, emphatically; "she can not be removed. As her physician, I certainly would not give my consent to such a proceeding; her very life would pay the forfeit."

For a few moments Lester Stanwick paced up and down the hall lost in deep thought; his lips were firmly set, and there was a determined gleam in his restless black eyes. Suddenly he stopped short directly before the doctor, who stood regarding him with no very agreeable expression in his honest gray eyes.

"How long will it be before the crisis is past—that is, how long will it be before she is able to be removed?"

"Not under three weeks," replied the doctor, determinedly.

"Good heavens!" he ejaculated, sharply. "Why, I shall have to—" He bit his lip savagely, as if he had been on the point of disclosing some guarded secret. "Fate is against me," he said, "in more ways than one; these things can not be avoided, I suppose. Well, doctor, as I am forced to leave to-day I shall leave her in your charge. I will return in exactly two weeks. She has brain fever, you say?"

The doctor nodded.

"You assure me she can not leave her bed for two weeks to come?" he continued, anxiously.

"I can safely promise that," replied the doctor, wondering at the strange, satisfied smile that flitted like a meteor over his companion's face for one brief instant.

"This will defray her expenses in the meantime," he said, putting a few crisp bank-notes into the doctor's hand. "See that she has every luxury."

He was about to re-enter the room where Daisy lay, but the doctor held him back.

"I should advise you to remain away for the present," he said, "your presence produces such an unpleasant effect upon her. Wait until she sleeps."

"I have often thought it so strange people in delirium shrink so from those they love best; I can not understand it," said Stanwick, with an odd, forced laugh. "As you are the doctor, I suppose your orders must be obeyed, however. If the fever should happen to take an unfavorable turn in the meantime, please drop a line to my address, 'care of Miss Pluma Hurlhurst, of Whitestone Hall, Allendale,'" he said, extending his card. "It will be forwarded to me promptly, and I can come on at once."

Again the doctor nodded, putting the card safely away in his wallet, and soon after Lester Stanwick took his departure, roundly cursing his luck, yet congratulating himself upon the fact that Daisy could not leave Elmwood—he could rest content on that score.

Meanwhile the three venerable sisters and the young doctor were watching anxiously at Daisy's bedside.

"Oh, my poor little dear—my pretty little dear!" sobbed Ruth, caressing the burning little hands that clung to her so tightly.

"Won't you hide me?" pleaded Daisy, laying her hot cheek against the wrinkled hand that held hers. "Hide me, please, just as if I were your own child; I have no mother, you know."

"God help the pretty, innocent darling!" cried the doctor, turning hastily away to hide the suspicious moisture that gathered in his eyes. "No one is going to harm you, little one," he said, soothingly; "no one shall annoy you."

"Was it so great a sin? He would not let me explain. He has gone out of my life!" she wailed, pathetically, putting back the golden rings of hair from her flushed face. "Rex! Rex!" she sobbed, incoherently, "I shall die—or, worse, I shall go mad, if you do not come back to me!"

The three ladies looked at one another questioningly, in alarm.

"You must not mind the strange ravings of a person in delirium," said the doctor, curtly; "they are liable to imagine and say all sorts of nonsense. Pay no attention to what she says, my dear ladies; don't disturb her with questions. That poor little brain needs absolute rest; every nerve seems to have been strained to its utmost."

After leaving the proper medicines and giving minute instructions as to how and when it should be administered, Dr. West took his departure, with a strange, vague uneasiness at his heart.

"Pshaw!" he muttered to himself, as he drove briskly along the shadowy road, yet seeing none of its beauty, "how strange it is these young girls will fall in love and marry such fellows as that!" he mused. "There is something about his face that I don't like; he is a scoundrel, and I'll bet my life on it!"

The doctor brought his fist down on his knee with such a resounding blow that poor old Dobbin broke into a gallop. But, drive as fast he would, he could not forget the sweet, childish face that had taken such a strong hold upon his fancy. The trembling red lips and pleading blue eyes haunted him all the morning, as though they held some secret they would fain have whispered.

All the night long Daisy clung to the hands that held hers, begging and praying her not to leave her alone, until the poor old lady was quite overcome by the fatigue of continued watching beside her couch. Rest or sleep seemed to have fled from Daisy's bright, restless eyes.

"Don't go away," she cried; "everybody goes away. I do not belong to any one. I am all—all—alone," she would sigh, drearily.

Again she fancied she was with Rex, standing beneath the magnolia boughs in the sunshine; again, she was clinging to his arm—while some cruel woman insulted her—sobbing pitifully upon his breast; again, she was parting from him at the gate, asking him if what they had done was right; then she was in some school-room, begging piteously for some cruel letter; then out on the waves in the storm and the on-coming darkness of night.

The sisters relieved one another at regular intervals. They had ceased to listen to her pathetic little appeals for help, or the wild cries of agony that burst from the red feverish lips as she started up from her slumbers with stifled sobs, moaning out that the time was flying; that she must escape anywhere, anywhere, while there were still fifteen minutes left her.

She never once mentioned Stanwick's name, or Septima's, but called incessantly for Rex and poor old Uncle John.

"Who in the world do you suppose Rex is?" said Matilda, thoughtfully. "That name is continually on her lips—the last word she utters when she closes her eyes, the first word to cross her lips when she awakes. That must certainly be the handsome young fellow she met at the gate. If he is Rex I do not wonder the poor child loved him so. He was the handsomest, most noble-looking, frank-faced young man I have ever seen; and he took on in a way that made me actually cry when I told him she was married. He would not believe it, until I called the child and she told him herself it was the truth. I was sorry from the bottom of my heart that young fellow had not won her instead of this Stanwick, they were so suited to each other."

"Ah," said Ruth, after a moment's pause, "I think I have the key to this mystery. She loves this handsome Rex, that is evident; perhaps they have had a lovers' quarrel, and she has married this one on the spur of the moment through pique. Oh, the pretty little dear!" sighed Ruth. "I hope she will never rue it."



CHAPTER XV.

Slowly the days came and went for the next fortnight. The crisis had passed, and Dr. West said she would soon recover. The beautiful, long, golden hair had been shorn from the pretty little head, and the rose-bloom had died out of the pretty cheeks, but the bright, restless light never left the beautiful blue eyes—otherwise there was but little change in Daisy.

It had been just two weeks that morning, they told her, as she opened her eyes to consciousness, since she had first been stricken down.

"And I have been here ever since?" she inquired, wonderingly.

"Yes, my dear," replied Ruth Burton, softly patting the thin white cheeks; "of course you have been here ever since. I am afraid we are going to lose you soon, however. We have received a letter from your husband, saying he will be here some time to-morrow. Shall you be pleased to see him, dear?"

In one single instant all the dim, horrible past rushed back to Daisy's mind. She remembered flinging herself down in the clover-scented grass, and the world growing dark around her, as the terrible words of Stanwick rang in her ears—he would be back in just fifteen minutes to claim her.

Ah, bonny little Daisy, tossing on your pillow, babbling empty nothings, better would it have been for you, perhaps, if you had dropped the weary burden of your life into the kindly arms of death then and there than to struggle onward into the dark mystery which lay entombed in your future.

"Shall you be glad to see Mr. Stanwick, dear?" repeated the old lady, and, unconscious of any wrong, she placed the letter he had written in Daisy's hands. Like one in a terrible dream, Daisy read it quite through to the end. "You see, he says he incloses fifty dollars extra for you, dear. I have placed it with the twenty safe in your little purse."

"Oh, Miss Ruth, you are so very kind to me. I shall never forget how good you have all been to me," said Daisy, softly, watching the three peaceful-faced old ladies, who had drawn their rocking-chairs, as was their custom, all in a row, and sat quietly knitting in the sunshine, the gentle click of their needles falling soothingly upon Daisy's poor, tired brain.

"We shall miss you sadly when you go," said Ruth, knitting away vigorously. "You have been like a ray of sunshine in this gloomy old house. We have all learned to love you very dearly."

"You love me?" repeated Daisy, wonderingly. "I was beginning to believe every one hated me in the whole world, every one has been so bitter and so cruel with me, except poor old Uncle John. I often wonder why God lets me live—what am I to do with my life! Mariana in the moated grange, was not more to be pitied than I. Death relieved her, but I am left to struggle on."

"Heaven hear her!" cried Ruth. "One suffers a great deal to lose all interest in life. You are so young, dear, you could not have suffered much."

"I have lost all I hold dear in life," she answered, pathetically, lifting her beautiful, childish blue eyes toward the white fleecy clouds tinted by the setting sun.

Their hearts ached for the pretty, lonely little creature. They believed she was thinking of her mother. So she was—and of Rex, the handsome young husband whom she so madly idolized in her worshipful childish fashion, who was worse than dead to her—the husband who should have believed in her honor and purity, though the world had cried out to him that she was false. He had thrust aside all possibility of her writing to him; cast her out from his life; left her to be persecuted beyond all endurance; bound by a vow she dare not break to keep her marriage with Rex a secret. Though he was more cruel than death, she loved Rex with a devotion that never faltered.

Daisy lay there, thinking of it all, while the soft, golden sunlight died out of the sky, and the deep dusk of twilight crept softly on.

Then the old ladies arose from their chairs, folded their knitting, and put it away. Dusk was their hour for retiring.

They were discussing which one should sit up with Daisy, when she summoned them all to her bedside.

"I want you all to go to bed and never mind me," coaxed Daisy, with a strange light in her eyes. "Take a good sleep, as I am going to do. I shall be very happy to-morrow—happier than I have ever been before!"

She clasped her white arms about their necks in turn, clinging to them, and sobbing as though she was loath to part with them.

Ruth's hand she held last and longest.

"Please kiss me again," she sobbed. "Clasp your arms tight around me, and say 'Good-night, Daisy.' It will be so nice to dream about."

With a cheery laugh the old lady lovingly complied with her request.

"You must close those bright little eyes of yours, and drift quickly into the Land of Nod, or there will be no roses in these cheeks to-morrow. Good-night, my pretty little dear!"

"Good-night, dear, kind Ruth!" sighed Daisy.

And she watched the old lady with wistful, hungry eyes as she picked up her shaded night-lamp, that threw such a soft, sweet radiance over her aged face, as she quietly quitted the room.

A sudden change came over Daisy's face as the sound of her footsteps died away in the hall.

"Oh, God! help me!" she cried, piteously, struggling to her feet. "I must be far away from here when daylight breaks."

She was so weak she almost fell back on her bed again when she attempted to rise. The thought of the morrow lent strength to her flagging energies. A strange mist seemed rising before her. Twice she seemed near fainting, but her indomitable courage kept her from sinking, as she thought of what the morrow would have in store for her.

Quietly she counted over the little store in her purse by the moon's rays.

"Seventy dollars! Oh, I could never use all that in my life!" she cried. "Besides, I could never touch one cent of Stanwick's money. It would burn my fingers—I am sure it would!"

Folding the bill carefully in two she placed it beneath her little snowy ruffled pillow. Then catching up the thick, dark shawl which lay on an adjacent table, she wrapped it quickly about her. She opened the door leading out into the hall, and listened. All was still—solemnly still.

Daisy crept softly down the stairs, and out into the quiet beauty of the still, summer night.

"Rex," she wailed, softly, "perhaps when I am dead you will feel sorry for poor little Daisy, and some one may tell you how you have wronged me in your thoughts, but you would not let me tell you how it happened!"

In the distance she saw the shimmer of water lying white and still under the moon's rays, tipped by the silvery light of the stars.

"No, not that way," she cried, with a shudder; "some one might save me, and I want to die!"

In the distance the red and colored gleaming lights of an apothecary's shop caught her gaze.

"Yes, that way will be best," she said, reflectively.

She drew the shawl closer about her, pressing on as rapidly as her feeble little feet would carry her. How weak she was when she turned the knob and entered—the very lights seemed dancing around her.

A small, keen-eyed, shrewd little man stepped briskly forward to wait upon her. He started back in horror at the utter despair and woe in the beautiful young face that was turned for a moment toward him, beautiful in all its pallor as a statue, with a crown of golden hair such as pictures of angels wear encircling the perfect head.

"What can I do for you, miss?" queried the apothecary, gazing searchingly into the beautiful dreamy blue eyes raised up to his and wondering who she could possibly be.

"I wish to purchase some laudanum," Daisy faltered. "I wish it to relieve a pain which is greater than I can bear."

"Toothache, most probably?" intimated the brisk little doctor. "I know what it is. Lord bless you! I've had it until I thought I should jump through the roof. Laudanum's a first-class thing, but I can tell you of something better—jerk 'em out, that's my recipe," he said, with an odd little smile. "Of course every one to their notion, and if you say laudanum—and nothing else—why it's laudanum you shall have; but remember it's powerful. Why, ten drops of it would cause—death."

"How many drops did you say?" asked Daisy, bending forward eagerly. "I—I want to be careful in taking it."

"Ten drops, I said, would poison a whole family, and twenty a regiment. You must use it very carefully, miss. Remember I have warned you," he said, handing her the little bottle filled with a dark liquid and labeled conspicuously, "Laudanum—a poison."

"Please give me my change quickly," she said, a strange, deadly sickness creeping over her.

"Certainly, ma'am," assented the obliging little man, handing her back the change.

Daisy quite failed to notice that he returned her the full amount she had paid him in his eagerness to oblige her, and he went happily back to compounding his drugs in the rear part of the shop, quite unconscious he was out the price of the laudanum.

He was dreaming of the strange beauty of the young girl, and the smile deepened on his good-humored face as he remembered how sweetly she had gazed up at him.

Meanwhile Daisy struggled on, clasping her treasure close to her throbbing heart. She remembered Ruth had pointed out an old shaft to her from her window; it had been unused many years, she had said.

"The old shaft shall be my tomb," she said; "no one will think of looking for me there."

Poor little Daisy—unhappy girl-bride, let Heaven not judge her harshly—she was sorely tried.

"Mother, mother!" she sobbed, in a dry, choking voice, "I can not live any longer. I am not taking the life God gave me, I am only returning it to Him. This is the only crime I have ever committed, mother, and man will forget it, and God will forgive me. You must plead for me, angel-mother. Good-bye, dear, kind Uncle John, your love never failed me, and Rex—oh, Rex—whom I love best of all, you will not know how I loved you. Oh, my love—my lost love—I shall watch over you up there!" she moaned, "and come to you in your dreams! Good-bye, Rex, my love, my husband!" she sobbed, holding the fatal liquid to her parched lips.

The deep yawning chasm lay at her feet. Ten—ay, eleven drops she hastily swallowed. Then with one last piteous appeal to Heaven for forgiveness, poor, helpless little Daisy closed her eyes and sprung into the air.



CHAPTER XVI.

A strong hand drew Daisy quickly back.

"Rash child! What is this that you would do?" cried an eager, earnest voice, and, turning quickly about, speechless with fright, Daisy met the stern eyes of the apothecary bent searchingly, inquiringly upon her.

"It means that I am tired of life," she replied, desperately. "My life is so full of sadness it will be no sorrow to leave it. I wanted to rest quietly down there, but you have held me back; it is useless to attempt to save me now. I have already swallowed a portion of the laudanum. Death must come to relieve me soon. It would be better to let me die down there where no one could have looked upon my face again."

"I had no intention to let you die so easily," said the apothecary, softly. "I read your thoughts too plainly for that. I did not give you laudanum, but a harmless mixture instead, and followed you to see if my surmise was correct. You are young and fair—surely life could not have lost all hope and sunshine for you?"

"You do not know all," said Daisy, wearily, "or you would not have held me back. I do not know of another life so utterly hopeless as my own."

The good man looked at the sweet, innocent, beautiful face, upon which the starlight fell, quite bewildered and thoughtful.

"I should like to know what your trouble is," he said, gently.

"I could tell you only one half of it," she replied, wearily. "I have suffered much, and yet through no fault of my own. I am cast off, deserted, condemned to a loveless, joyless life; my heart is broken; there is nothing left me but to die. I repeat that it is a sad fate."

"It is indeed," replied the apothecary, gravely. "Yet, alas! not an uncommon one. Are you quite sure that nothing can remedy it?"

"Quite sure," replied Daisy, hopelessly. "My doom is fixed; and no matter how long I live, or how long he lives, it can never be altered."

The apothecary was uncomfortable without knowing why, haunted by a vague, miserable suspicion, which poor Daisy's words secretly corroborated; yet it seemed almost a sin to harbor one suspicion against the purity of the artless little creature before him. He looked into the fresh young face. There was no cloud on it, no guilt lay brooding in the clear, truthful blue eyes. He never dreamed little Daisy was a wife. "Why did he not love her?" was the query the apothecary asked himself over and over again; "she is so young, so loving, and so fair. He has cast her off, this man to whom she has given the passionate love of her young heart."

"You see you did wrong to hold me back," she said, gently. "How am I to live and bear this sorrow that has come upon me? What am I to do?"

She looked around her with the bewildered air of one who had lost her way, with the dazed appearance of one from beneath whose feet the bank of safety has been withdrawn. Hope was dead, and the past a blank.

"No matter what your past has been, my poor child, you must remember there is a future. Take up the burden again, and bear it nobly; go back to your home, and commence life anew."

"I have no home and no friends," she sighed, hopelessly.

"Poor child," he said, pityingly, "is it as bad as that?"

A sudden idea seemed to occur to him.

"You are a perfect stranger to me," he said, "but I believe you to be an honorable girl, and I should like to befriend you, as I would pray Heaven to befriend a daughter of mine if she were similarly situated. If I should put you in a way of obtaining your own living as companion to an elderly lady in a distant city, would you be willing to take up the tangled threads of your life again, and wait patiently until God saw fit to call you—that is, you would never attempt to take your life into your own hands again?" he asked, slowly. "Remember, such an act is murder, and a murderer can not enter the kingdom of heaven."

He never forgot the startled, frightened glance that swept over the beautiful face, plainly discernible in the white moonlight, nor the quiver of the sweet, tremulous voice as Daisy answered:

"I think God must have intended me to live, or He would not have sent you here to save me," she answered, impulsively. "Twice I have been near death, and each time I have been rescued. I never attempted to take my own life but this once. I shall try and accept my fate and live out my weary life."

"Bravely spoken, my noble girl," replied her rescuer, heartily.

"I must go far away from here, though," she continued, shuddering; "I am sorely persecuted here."

The old man listened gravely to her disconnected, incoherent words, drawing but one conclusion from them—"the lover who had cast her off was pursuing the child, as her relentless foe, to the very verge of death and despair."

"It is my sister who wants a companion," he said. "She lives in the South—in Florida. Do you think you would like to go as far away as that?"

"Yes," said Daisy, mechanically. "I should like to go to the furthest end of the world. It does not matter much where I go!"

How little she knew where fate was drifting her! Rex had not told her his home was in Florida; he meant to tell her that on the morning he was to have met her.

"It will be a long, wearisome journey for you to undertake, still I feel sure you are brave enough to accomplish it in safety."

"I thank you very much for your confidence in me, sir," said Daisy, simply.

"Tut, tut, child!" exclaimed the old man, brusquely. "That innocent little face of yours ought to be a passport to any one's confidence. I don't think there's any doubt but what you will get on famously with Maria—that's my sister Mrs. Glenn—but she's got three daughters that would put an angel's temper on edge. They're my nieces—more's the pity, for they are regular Tartars. Mrs. Glenn sent for my daughter Alice to come down there; but, Lord bless you, I wouldn't dare send her! There would be a raging quarrel before twenty-four hours! My Alice has got a temper of her own. But, pshaw! I ought not to frighten you, my dear; they could not help but love you."

And thus it was Daisy's fate was unchangeably settled for her.

"There is one thing I would like you to promise me," she said, timidly, "and that is never to divulge my whereabouts to any one who might come in search of me. I must remain dead to the world forever; I shall never take up the old life again. They must believe me dead."

Argument and persuasion alike were useless; and, sorely troubled at heart, the apothecary reluctantly consented. Poor little Daisy impulsively caught him by both hands, and gratefully sobbed out her thanks.

The arrangements were soon completed, and before the gray dawn pierced the darkness of the eastern sky poor little Daisy was whirling rapidly away from Elmwood.

The consternation and excitement which prevailed at the Burton Cottage when Daisy's absence was discovered can better be imagined than described; or the intense anger of Stanwick upon finding Daisy had eluded him.

"Checkmated!" he cried, white to the very lips. "But she shall not escape me; she shall suffer for this freak. I am not a man to be trifled with. She can not have gone far," he assured himself. "In all probability she has left Elmwood; but if by rail or by water I can easily recapture my pretty bird. Ah, Daisy Brooks!" he muttered, "you can not fly away from your fate; it will overtake you sooner or later."

Some hours after Stanwick had left the cottage, an old man toiled wearily up the grass-grown path.

"Oh, poor little Daisy," he said, wiping the tears from his eyes with his old red and white cotton kerchief; "no matter what you have done I will take you back to my heart—that I will!"

He clutched the letter Mme. Whitney had written him close in his toil-hardened hand. The letter simply told him Daisy had fled from the seminary, and she had every reason to believe she was now in Elmwood. He had received the letter while in New York, and hastily proceeded to Elmwood, the station indicated, at once, without stopping over at Allendale to acquaint Septima with the news.

"She shall never be sent off to school again," he commented; "but she shall stop at home. Poor little pet, she was always as happy as the day was long; she sha'n't have book-learning if she don't want it. I am too hard, I s'pose, with the child in sending her off among these primpy city gals, with their flounces and furbelows, with only three plain muslin frocks. The dickens fly away with the book-learnin'; I like her all the better just as she is, bless her dear little heart! I'm after little Daisy Brooks," he said, bowing to the ladies who met him at the door. "I heard she was here—run away from school, you see, ma'am—but I'll forgive the little gypsy. Tell her old Uncle John is here. She'll be powerful glad to see me."

Slowly and gently they broke to him the cruel story. How the dark, handsome stranger had brought her there in the storm and the night; and they could not refuse her shelter; the gentleman claimed her to be his wife; of her illness which culminated in her disappearance.

They never forgot the white, set face turned toward them. The veins stood out like cords on his forehead, and the perspiration rolled down his pallid cheeks in great quivering beads. This heart-rending, silent emotion was more terrible to witness than the most violent paroxysms of grief. Strangely enough they had quite forgotten to mention Rex's visit.

"You don't know how I loved that child," he cried, brokenly. "She was all I had to love in the whole world, and I set such store by her, but Stanwick shall pay dearly for this," he cried, hoarsely. "I shall never rest day or night until my little Daisy's honor is avenged, so help me God! You think she is dead?" he questioned, looking brokenly from the one to the other.

They only nodded their heads; they could not speak through their sobs.

At that moment several of the neighbors who were assisting in the search were seen coming toward the cottage.

They gathered in a little knot by the garden wall. With a heart heavier than lead in his bosom John Brooks went forward to meet them.

"You haven't got any track of my little Daisy?" he asked, despondingly. The men averted their faces. "For God's sake speak out, my men!" he cried, in agony; "I can't stand this suspense."

"There are footprints in the wet grass down yonder," one of them replied; "and they lead straight down to the old shaft. Do you think your girl has made away with herself?"

A gray, ghastly pallor settled over John Brooks' anguished face.

"The Lord knows! All of you stay here while I go down there and look. If I should find anything there I'd rather be alone."

There was a depth of agony in the man's voice that touched his hearers, and more than one coat-sleeve was drawn hastily across sympathetic eyes as they whispered one to the other he would surely find her there.

John Brooks had reached the very mouth of the pit now, and through the branches of the trees the men saw him suddenly spring forward, and stoop as if to pick up something, and bitter cries rent the stillness of the summer morning.

"Daisy! oh, Daisy! my child, my child!"

Then they saw him fall heavily to the ground on the very brink of the shaft.

"I guess he's found her!" cried the sympathizing men. "Let us go and see."

They found John Brooks insensible, lying prone on his face, grasping a tiny little glove in one hand, and in the other a snowy little handkerchief, which bore, in one corner, worked in fanciful design, the name of "Daisy."



CHAPTER XVII.

Glengrove was one of the most beautiful spots in the south of Florida. The house—similar to many in the South in style of architecture—stood in the midst of charming grounds which were filled with flowers. To the left of the house was a large shrubbery which opened on to a wide carriage-drive leading to the main road, but the principal attraction of Glengrove was its magnificent orange grove, where the brilliant sunshine loved to linger longest among the dark-green boughs, painting the luscious fruit with its own golden coloring—from green to gold. A low stone wall divided it from the beach which led to the sea.