"You need not go around by the main road," she said, "there is a much nearer path leading down to the stone wall. You need not wait for an answer: there will be none. The servants over there are awkward, blundering creatures—do not trust it to them—you must deliver it to Rex himself."

"I make one last appeal to you, Miss Gertie. Indeed, it is not pride that prompts me. I could not bear it. Have pity on me. You are gentle and kind to others; please, oh, please be merciful to me!"

"I have nothing more to say upon the subject—I have said you were to go. You act as if I were sending you to some place where you might catch the scarlet fever or the mumps. You amuse me; upon my word you do. Rex is not dangerous, neither is he a Bluebeard; his only fault is being alarmingly handsome. The best advice I can give you is, don't admire him too much. He should be labeled, 'Out of the market.'"

Gertie tripped gayly from the room, her crimson satin ribbons fluttering after her, leaving a perceptible odor of violets in the room, while Daisy clutched the note in her cold, nervous grasp, walking like one in a terrible dream through the bright patches of glittering moonlight, through the sweet-scented, rose-bordered path, on through the dark shadows of the trees toward the home of Rex—her husband.

A soft, brooding silence lay over the sleeping earth as Daisy, with a sinking heart, drew near the house. Her soft footfalls on the green mossy earth made no sound.

Silently as a shadow she crept up to the blossom-covered porch; some one was standing there, leaning against the very pillar around which she had twined her arms as she watched Rex's shadow on the roses.

The shifting moonbeams pierced the white, fleecy clouds that enveloped them, and as he turned his face toward her she saw it was Rex. She could almost have reached out her hand and touched him from where she stood. She was sorely afraid her face or her voice might startle him if she spoke to him suddenly.

"I do not need to speak," she thought. "I will go up to him and lay the letter in his hand."

Then a great intense longing came over her to hear his voice and know that he was speaking to her. She had quite decided to pursue this course, when the rustle of a silken garment fell upon her ear. She knew the light tread of the slippered feet but too well—it was Pluma. She went up to him in her usual caressing fashion, laying her white hand on his arm.

"Do you know you have been standing here quite two hours, Rex, watching the shadows of the vine-leaves? I have longed to come up and ask you what interest those dancing shadows had for you, but I could not make up my mind to disturb you. I often fancy you do not know how much time you spend in thought."

Pluma was wondering if he was thinking of that foolish, romantic fancy that had come so near separating them—his boyish fancy for Daisy Brooks, their overseer's niece. No, surely not. He must have forgotten her long ago.

"These reveries seem to have grown into a habit with me," he said, dreamily; "almost a second nature, of late. If you were to come and talk to me at such times, you would break me of it."

The idea pleased her. A bright flush rose to her face, and she made him some laughing reply, and he looked down upon her with a kindly smile.

Oh! the torture of it to the poor young wife standing watching them, with heart on fire in the deep shadow of the crimson-hearted passion-flowers that quivered on the intervening vines. The letter she held in her hand slipped from her fingers into the bushes all unheeded. She had but one thought—she must get away. The very air seemed to stifle her; her heart seemed numb—an icy band seemed pressing round it, and her poor forehead was burning hot. It did not matter much where she went, nobody loved her, nobody cared for her. As softly as she came, she glided down the path that led to the entrance-gate beyond. She passed through the moonlighted grounds, where the music and fragrance of the summer night was at its height. The night wind stirred the pink clover and the blue-bells beneath her feet. Her eyes were hot and dry; tears would have been a world of relief to her, but none came to her parched eyelids.

She paid little heed to the direction she took. One idea alone took possession of her—she must get away.

"If I could only go back to dear old Uncle John," she sighed. "His love has never failed me."

It seemed long years back since she had romped with him, a happy, merry child, over the cotton fields, and he had called her his sunbeam during all those years when no one lived at Whitestone Hall and the wild ivy climbed riotously over the windows and doors. Even Septima's voice would have sounded so sweet to her. She would have lived over again those happy, childish days, if she only could. She remembered how Septima would send her to the brook for water, and how she sprinkled every flower in the path-way that bore her name; and how Septima would scold her when she returned with her bucket scarce half full; and how she had loved to dream away those sunny summer days, lying under the cool, shady trees, listening to the songs the robins sang as they glanced down at her with their little sparkling eyes.

How she had dreamed of the gallant young hero who was to come to her some day. She had wondered how she would know him, and what were the words he first would say! If he would come riding by, as the judge did when "Maud Muller stood in the hay-fields;" and she remembered, too, the story of "Rebecca at the Well." A weary smile flitted over her face as she remembered when she went to the brook she had always put on her prettiest blue ribbons, in case she might meet her hero.

Oh, those sweet, bright, rosy dreams of girlhood! What a pity it is they do not last forever! Those girlish dreams, where glowing fancy reigns supreme, and the prosaic future is all unknown. She remembered her meeting with Rex, how every nerve in her whole being thrilled, and how she had felt her cheeks grow flaming hot, just as she had read they would do when she met the right one. That was how she had known Rex was the right one when she had shyly glanced up, from under her long eyelashes, into the gay, brown hazel eyes, fixed upon her so quizzically, as he took the heavy basket from her slender arms, that never-to-be-forgotten June day, beneath the blossoming magnolia-tree.

Poor child! her life had been a sad romance since then. How strange it was she was fleeing from the young husband whom she had married and was so quickly parted from!

All this trouble had come about because she had so courageously rescued her letter from Mme. Whitney.

"If he had not bound me to secrecy, I could have have cried out before the whole world I was his wife," she thought.

A burning flush rose to her face as she thought how cruelly he had suspected her, this poor little child-bride who had never known one wrong or sinful thought in her pure, innocent young life.

If he had only given her the chance of explaining how she had happened to be there with Stanwick; if they had taken her back she must have confessed about the letter and who Rex was and what he was to her.

Even Stanwick's persecution found an excuse in her innocent, unsuspecting little heart.

"He sought to save me from being taken back when he called me his wife," she thought. "He believed I was free to woo and win, because I dared not tell him I was Rex's wife." Yet the thought of Stanwick always brought a shudder to her pure young mind. She could not understand why he would have resorted to such desperate means to gain an unwilling bride.

"Not yet seventeen. Ah, what a sad love-story hers had been. How cruelly love's young dream had been blighted," she told herself; and yet she would not have exchanged that one thrilling, ecstatic moment of rapture when Rex had clasped her in his arms and whispered: "My darling wife," for a whole lifetime of calm happiness with any one else.

On and on she walked through the violet-studded grass, thinking—thinking. Strange fancies came thronging to her overwrought brain. She pushed her veil back from her face and leaned against the trunk of a tree; her brain was dizzy and her thoughts were confused; the very stars seemed dancing riotously in the blue sky above her, and the branches of the trees were whispering strange fancies. Suddenly a horseman, riding a coal-black charger, came cantering swiftly up the long avenue of trees. He saw the quiet figure standing leaning against the drooping branches.

"I will inquire the way," he said to himself, drawing rein beside her. "Can you tell me, madame, if this is the most direct road leading to Glengrove and that vicinity? I am looking for a hostelry near it. I seem to have lost my way. Will you kindly direct me?" he asked, "or to the home of Mr. Rex Lyon?"

The voice sounded strangely familiar to Daisy. She was dimly conscious some one was speaking to her. She raised her face up and gazed at the speaker. The cold, pale moonlight fell full upon it, clearly revealing its strange, unearthly whiteness, and the bright flashing eyes, gazing dreamily past the terror-stricken man looking down on her, with white, livid lips and blanched, horror-stricken face. His eyes almost leaped from their sockets in abject terror, as Lester Stanwick gazed on the upturned face by the roadside.

"My God, do I dream?" he cried, clutching at the pommel of his saddle. "Is this the face of Daisy Brooks, or is it a specter, unable to sleep in the depths of her tomb, come back to haunt me for driving her to her doom?"



CHAPTER XXVI.

Rex and Pluma talked for some time out in the moonlight, then Rex excused himself, and on the plea of having important business letters to write retired to the library.

For some minutes Pluma leaned thoughtfully against the railing. The night was still and clear; the moon hung over the dark trees; floods of silvery light bathed the waters of the glittering sea, the sleeping flowers and the grass, and on the snowy orange-blossoms and golden fruit amid the green foliage.

"I shall always love this fair southern home," she thought, a bright light creeping into her dark, dazzling eyes. "I am Fortune's favorite," she said, slowly. "I shall have the one great prize I covet most on earth. I shall win Rex at last. I wonder at the change in him. There was a time when I believed he loved me. Could it be handsome, refined, courteous Rex had more than a passing fancy for Daisy Brooks—simple, unpretentious Daisy Brooks? Thank God she is dead!" she cried, vehemently. "I would have periled my very soul to have won him."

Even as the thought shaped itself in her mind, a dark form stepped cautiously forward.

She was not startled; a passing wonder as to who it might be struck her. She did not think much about it; a shadow in the moonlight did not frighten her.

"Pluma!" called a low, cautious voice, "come down into the garden; I must speak with you. It is I, Lester Stanwick."

In a single instant the soft love-light had faded from her face, leaving it cold, proud, and pitiless. A vague, nameless dread seized her. She was a courageous girl; she would not let him know it.

"The mad fool!" she cried, clinching her white jeweled hands together. "Why does he follow me here? What shall I do? I must buy him off at any cost. I dare not defy him. Better temporize with him." She muttered the words aloud, and she was shocked to see how changed and hoarse her own voice sounded. "Women have faced more deadly peril than this," she muttered, "and cleverly outwitted ingenious foes. I must win by stratagem."

She quickly followed the tall figure down the path that divided the little garden from the shrubbery.

"I knew you would not refuse me, Pluma," he said, clasping her hands and kissing her cold lips. He noticed the glance she gave him had nothing in it but coldness and annoyance. "You do not tell me you are pleased to see me, Pluma, and yet you have promised to be my wife." She stood perfectly still leaning against an oleander-tree. "Why don't you speak to me, Pluma?" he cried. "By Heaven! I am almost beginning to mistrust you. You remember your promise," he said, hurriedly—"if I removed the overseer's niece from your path you were to reward me with your heart and hand." She would have interrupted him, but he silenced her with a gesture. "You said your love for Rex had turned to bitter hatred. You found he loved the girl, and that would be a glorious revenge. I did not have to resort to abducting her from the seminary as we had planned. The bird flew into my grasp. I would have placed her in the asylum you selected, but she eluded me by leaping into the pit. I have been haunted by her face night and day ever since. I see her face in crowds, in the depths of the silent forest, her specter appears before me until I fly from it like one accursed."

She could not stay the passionate torrent of his words.

"Lester, this is all a mistake," she said; "you have not given me a chance to speak." Her hands dropped nervously by her side. There were fierce, rebellious thoughts in her heart, but she dare not give them utterance. "What have I done to deserve all this?" she asked, trying to assume a tender tone she was far from feeling.

"What have you done?" he cried, hoarsely. "Why, I left you at Whitestone Hall, feeling secure in the belief that I had won you. Returning suddenly and unexpectedly, I found you had gone to Florida, to the home of Rex Lyon. Do you know what I would have done, Pluma, if I had found you his wife and false to your trust?"

"You forget yourself, Lester," she said; "gentlemen never threaten women."

He bit his lip angrily.

"There are extreme cases of desperation," he made reply. "You must keep your promise," he said, determinedly. "No other man must dare speak to you of love."

She saw the angry light flame into his eyes, and trembled under her studied composure; yet not the quiver of an eyelid betrayed her emotion. She had not meant to quarrel with him; for once in her life she forgot her prudence.

"Suppose that, by exercise of any power you think you possess, you could really compel me to be your wife, do you think it would benefit you? I would learn to despise you. What would you gain by it?"

The answer sprung quickly to his lips: "The one great point for which I am striving—possession of Whitestone Hall;" but he was too diplomatic to utter the words. She saw a lurid light in his eyes.

"You shall be my wife," he said, gloomily. "If you have been cherishing any hope of winning Rex Lyon, abandon it at once. As a last resort, I would explain to him how cleverly you removed the pretty little girl he loved from his path."

"You dare not!" she cried, white to the very lips. "You have forgotten your own share in that little affair. Who would believe you acted upon a woman's bidding? You would soon be called to account for it. You forget that little circumstance, Lester; you dare not go to Rex!" He knew what she said was perfectly true. He had not intended going to Rex; he knew it would be as much as his life was worth to encounter him. He was aware his name had been coupled with Daisy's in the journals which had described her tragic death. He knew Rex had fallen madly, desperately in love with little Daisy Brooks, but he did not dream he had made her his wife. "You have not given me time to explain why I am here."

"I have heard all about it," he answered, impatiently; "but I do not understand why they sent for you."

"Mrs. Lyon requested it," she replied, quietly. "Rex simply obeyed her wishes."

"Perhaps she looked upon you as her future daughter-in-law," sneered Lester, covertly. "I have followed you to Florida to prevent it; I would follow you to the ends of the earth to prevent it! A promise to me can not be lightly broken."

Not a feature of that proud face quivered to betray the sharp spasm of fear that darted through her heart.

"You should have waited until you had cause to reproach me, Lester," she said, drawing her wrap closer about her and shivering as if with cold. "I must go back to the house now; some one might miss me."

He made no reply. The wind bent the reeds, and the waves of the sea dashed up on the distant beach with a long, low wash. He was wondering how far she was to be trusted.

"You may have perfect confidence in me, Lester," she said; "my word ought to be sufficient," as if quite divining his thoughts. "You need have no fear; I will be true to you."

"I shall remain away until this affair has blown over," he replied. "I can live as well in one part of the country as another, thanks to the income my father left me." He laid great stress on the last sentence; he wanted to impress her with the fact that he had plenty of money. "She must never know," he told himself, "that he had so riotously squandered the vast inheritance that had been left him, and he was standing on the verge of ruin." A marriage with the wealthy heiress would save him at the eleventh hour. "I will trust you, Pluma," he continued. "I know, you will keep your vow."

The false ring of apparent candor did not deceive her; she knew it would be a case of diamond cut diamond.

"That is spoken like your own generous self, Lester," she said, softly, clasping his hands in her own white, jeweled ones. "You pained me by your distrust."

He saw she was anxious to get away from him, and he bit his lip with vexation; her pretty, coaxing manner did not deceive him one whit, yet he clasped his arms in a very lover-like fashion around her as he replied:

"Forget that it ever existed, my darling. Where there is such ardent, passionate love, there is always more or less jealousy and fear. Do you realize I am making an alien of myself for your sweet sake? I could never refuse you a request. Your slightest will has been my law. Be kind to me, Pluma."

She did try to be more than agreeable and fascinating.

"I must remove all doubts from his mind," she thought. "I shall probably be Rex's wife when we meet again. Then his threats will be useless; I will scornfully deny it. He has no proofs."

She talked to him so gracefully, so tenderly, at times, he was almost tempted to believe she actually cared for him more than she would admit. Still he allowed it would do no harm to keep a strict watch of her movements.

"Good-bye, Pluma, dearest," he said, "I shall keep you constantly advised of my whereabouts. As soon as matters can be arranged satisfactorily, I am coming back to claim you."

Another moment and she was alone, walking slowly back to the house, a very torrent of anger in her proud, defiant heart.

"I must hurry matters up, delays are dangerous," she thought, walking slowly up the broad path toward the house.

* * * * *

Slowly the long hours of the night dragged themselves by, yet Daisy did not return to Glengrove. The hours lengthened into days, and days into weeks, still there was no trace of her to be found. Gertie's explanation readily accounted for her absence.

"She preferred to leave us rather than deliver my note," she said, angrily; "and I for one am not sorry she has gone."

"Rex did not mention having received it," said Bess, "when he came with Birdie to bid us good-bye."

"She probably read it and destroyed it," said Gertie, "Well, there was nothing in it very particular. Toward the last of it I mentioned I would send the note over by Daisy Brooks, my mother's companion. More than likely she took umbrage at that."

"That was a very unkind remark," asserted Eve. "You had no business to mention it at all; it was uncalled for."

"Well, she would not have known it if she had not read it," replied Gertie. "You must admit that."

Mrs. Glenn felt sorely troubled. In the short time Daisy had been with her she had put unlimited confidence in her.

No one thought of searching for her; they all accepted the facts as the case presented itself to them. Daisy had certainly left them of her own free will.

Eve alone felt distressed.

"I know everything looks that way, but I shall never believe it," she cried.

She remembered the conversation she had so lately had with Daisy. How she had clasped her loving little arms about her neck, crying out:

"Pray for me, Eve. I am sorely tried. My feet are on the edge of a precipice. No matter what I may be tempted to do, do not lose faith in me, Eve; always believe in me."

Poor little Daisy! what was the secret sorrow that was goading her on to madness? Would she ever know?

Where was she now? Ah, who could tell?

A curious change seemed to come over romping, mischievous, merry Eve; she had grown silent and thoughtful.

"I could never believe any one in this world was true or pure again if I thought for one moment deceit lay brooding in a face so fair as little Daisy Brooks's."



CHAPTER XXVII.

The months flew quickly by; the cold winter had slipped away, and the bright green grass and early violets were sprinkling the distant hill-slopes. The crimson-breasted robins were singing in the budding branches of the trees, and all Nature reminded one the glorious spring had come.

Rex Lyon stood upon the porch of Whitestone Hall gazing up at the white, fleecy clouds that scudded over the blue sky, lost in deep thought.

He was the same handsome, debonair Rex, but ah, how changed! The merry, laughing brown eyes looked silent and grave enough now, and the lips the drooping brown mustache covered rarely smiled. Even his voice seemed to have a deeper tone.

He had done the one thing that morning which his mother had asked him to do with her dying breath—he had asked Pluma Hurlhurst to be his wife.

The torture of the task seemed to grow upon him as the weeks rolled by, and in desperation he told himself he must settle the matter at once, or he would not have the strength to do it.

He never once thought what he should do with his life after he married her. He tried to summon up courage to tell her the story of his marriage, that his hopes, his heart, and his love all lay in the grave of his young wife. Poor Rex, he could not lay bare that sweet, sad secret; he could not have borne her questions, her wonder, her remarks, and have lived; his dead love was far too sacred for that; he could not take the treasured love-story from his heart and hold it up to public gaze. It would have been easier for him to tear the living, beating heart from his breast than to do this.

He had walked into the parlor that morning, where he knew he should find Pluma. She was standing before the fire. Although it was early spring the mornings were chilly, and a cheerful fire burned in the grate, throwing a bright, glowing radiance over the room and over the exquisite morning toilet of white cashmere, with its white lace frills, relieved here and there with coquettish dashes of scarlet blossoms, which Pluma wore, setting off her graceful figure to such queenly advantage.

Rex looked at her, at the imperious beauty any man might have been proud to win, secretly hoping she would refuse him.

"Good-morning, Rex," she said, holding out her white hands to him. "I am glad you have come to talk to me. I was watching you walking up and down under the trees, and you looked so lonely I half made up my mind to join you."

A lovely color was deepening in her cheeks, and her eyes drooped shyly. He broke right into the subject at once while he had the courage to do it.

"I have something to say to you, Pluma," he began, leading her to an adjacent sofa and seating himself beside her. "I want to ask you if you will be my wife." He looked perhaps the more confused of the two. "I will do my best to make you happy," he continued. "I can not say that I will make a model husband, but I will say I will do my best."

There was a minute's silence, awkward enough for both.

"You have asked me to be your wife, Rex, but you have not said one word of loving me."

The remark was so unexpected Rex seemed for a few moments to be unable to reply to it. Looking at the eager, expectant face turned toward him, it appeared ungenerous and unkind not to give her one affectionate word. Yet he did not know how to say it; he had never spoken a loving word to any one except Daisy, his fair little child-bride.

He tried hard to put the memory of Daisy away from him as he answered:

"The question is so important that most probably I have thought more of it than of any words which should go with it."

"Oh, that is it," returned Pluma, with a wistful little laugh. "Most men, when they ask women to marry them, say something of love, do they not?"

"Yes," he replied, absently.

"You have had no experience," laughed Pluma, archly.

She was sorely disappointed. She had gone over in her own imagination this very scene a thousand times, of the supreme moment he would clasp his arms around her, telling her in glowing, passionate words how dearly he loved her and how wretched his life would be without her. He did nothing of the kind.

Rex was thinking he would have given anything to have been able to make love to her—anything for the power of saying tender words—she looked so loving.

Her dark, beautiful face was so near him, and her graceful figure so close, that he could have wound his arm around her, but he did not. In spite of every resolve, he thought of Daisy the whole time. How different that other love-making had been! How his heart throbbed, and every endearing name he could think of trembled on his lips, as he strained Daisy to his heart when she had bashfully consented to be his wife!

That love-making was real substance; this one only the shadow of love.

"You have not answered my question, Pluma. Will you be my wife?"

Pluma raised her dark, beautiful face, radiant with the light of love, to his.

"If I consent will you promise to love me better than anything else or any one in the wide world?"

"I will devote my whole life to you, study your every wish," he answered, evasively.

How was she to know he had given all his heart to Daisy?

She held out her hands to him with a charming gesture of affection. He took them and kissed them; he could do neither more nor less.

"I will be your wife, Rex," she said, with a tremulous, wistful sigh.

"Thank you, Pluma," he returned, gently, bending down and kissing the beautiful crimson lips; "you shall never regret it. You are so kind, I am going to impose on your good nature. You have promised me you will be my wife—when may I claim you, Pluma?"

"Do you wish it to be soon?" she asked, hesitatingly, wondering how he would answer her.

"Yes," he said, absently; "the sooner it is over the better I shall be pleased."

She looked up into his face, at a loss how to interpret the words.

"You shall set the day, Rex," she replied.

"I have your father's consent that it may take place just as soon as possible, in case you promised to marry me," he said. "Suppose it takes place in a fortnight, say—will that be too soon for you?"

She gave a little scream of surprise. "As soon as that?" she murmured; but ended by readily consenting.

He thanked her and kissed her once more. After a few quiet words they parted—she, happy in the glamour of her love-dream; he, praying to Heaven from the depths of his miserable heart, to give him strength to carry out the rash vow which had been wrung from his unwilling lips.

In his heart Rex knew no one but Daisy could ever reign. Dead, he was devoted to her memory.

His life was narrowing down. He was all kindness, consideration and devotion; but the one supreme magnet of all—love—was wanting.

In vain Pluma exerted all her wondrous powers of fascination to win him more completely. How little he dreamed of the depths of love which controlled that passionate heart, every throb of which was for him—that to have won from him one token of warm affection she would have given all she held dear in this world.

"How does it happen, Rex," she asked, one evening, "you have not asked me to sing to you since you have asked me to be your wife? Music used to be such a bond of sympathy between us."

There was both love and reproach in her voice. He heard neither. He had simply forgotten it.

"I have been thinking of other things, I presume. Allow me to make up for it at once, however, by asking you if you will sing for me now."

The tears came to her dark, flashing eyes, but she forced them bravely back. She had hoped he would clasp her in his arms, whispering some sweet compliment, then say to her "Darling, won't you sing to me now?"

She swept toward the piano with the air of a queen.

"I want you to sit where I can see you, Rex," she demanded, prettily; "I like to watch your face when I sing you my favorite songs."

Rex drew his chair up close to the piano, laying his head back dreamily against the crimson cushions. He would not be obliged to talk; for once—just once—he would let his fancies roam where they would. He had often heard Pluma sing before, but never in the way she sung to-night. A low, thrilling, seductive voice full of pleading, passionate tenderness—a voice that whispered of the sweet irresistible power of love, that carried away the hearts of her listeners as a strong current carries a leaflet.

Was it a dream, or was it the night wind breathing the name of Daisy? The tears rose in his eyes, and he started to his feet, pale and trembling with agitation. Suddenly the music ceased.

"I did not think such a simple little melody had power to move you," she said.

"Is it a new song?" he asked. "I do not remember having heard it before. What is the title of it?"

He did not notice her face had grown slightly pale under the soft, pearly light of the gleaming lamps, as she held the music out toward him.

"It is a pretty title," she said, in her low, musical voice, "'Daisies Growing o'er my Darling's Grave.'"

In the terrible look of agony that swept over his handsome face, Pluma read the secret of his life; the one secret she had dreaded stood as clearly revealed to her as though it had been stamped in glowing letters upon his brow. She would have stood little chance of being Rex's wife if Daisy Brooks had lived.

Who would have dreamed the beautiful, proud young heiress could have cursed the very memory of the young girl whom she believed to be dead—lying all uncared for in a neglected, lonely grave?

Rex felt sorely disturbed. He never remembered how the remainder of the evening passed. Ah, heavens! how his mind wandered back to that sweet love-dream so cruelly broken. A mist as of tears spread before his eyes, and shut the whole world from him as he glanced out of the window and up at the star-gemmed sky—that was his Daisy's home.

"I hope my little song has not cast a gloom over you, Rex?" she said, holding out her hands to him as she arose to bid him good-night—those small white hands upon one of which his engagement-ring glowed with a thousand prismatic hues.

"Why should it?" he asked, attempting to laugh lightly. "I admired it perhaps more than any other I have ever heard you sing."

Pluma well knew why.

"It was suggested to me by a strange occurrence. Shall I relate it to you, Rex?"

He made some indistinct answer, little dreaming of how wofully the little anecdote would affect him.

"I do not like to bring up old, unpleasant subjects, Rex. But do you remember what the only quarrel we ever had was about, or rather who it was about?"

He looked at her in surprise; he had not the least idea of what she alluded to.

"Do you remember what a romantic interest you once took in our overseer's niece—the one who eloped with Lester Stanwick from boarding-school—the one whose death we afterward read of? Her name was Daisy—Daisy Brooks."

If she had suddenly plunged a dagger into his heart with her white jeweled hands he could not have been more cruelly startled. He could have cried aloud with the sharp pain of unutterable anguish that memory brought him. His answer was a bow; he dared not look up lest the haggard pain of his face should betray him.

"Her uncle (he was no relation, I believe, but she called him that) was more fond of her than words can express. I was driving along by an unfrequented road to-day when I came across a strange, pathetic sight. The poor old man was putting the last touches to a plain wooden cross he had just erected under a magnolia-tree, which bore the simple words: 'To the memory of Daisy Brooks, aged sixteen years.' Around the cross the grass was thickly sown with daisies.

"'She does not rest here,' the old man said, drawing his rough sleeve across his tear-dimmed eyes; 'but the poor little girl loved this spot best of any.'"

Pluma wondered why Rex took her just then in his arms for the first time and kissed her. He was thanking her in his heart; he could have knelt to her for the kind way she had spoken of Daisy.

A little later he was standing by the open window of his own room in the moonlight.

"My God!" he cried, burying his face in his hands, "this poor John Brooks did what I, her husband, should have done; but it is not too late now. I shall honor your memory, my darling; I shall have a costly marble monument erected to your memory, bearing the inscription: 'Sacred to the memory of Daisy, beloved wife of Rex Lyon, aged sixteen years.' Not Daisy Brooks, but Daisy Lyon. Mother is dead, what can secrecy avail now?"

He would not tell Pluma until the last moment. Straightway he ordered a magnificent monument from Baltimore—one of pure unblemished white, with an angel with drooping wings overlooking the tall white pillar.

When it arrived he meant to take Pluma there, and, reverently kneeling down before her, tell her all the story of his sweet, sad love-dream with his face pressed close against the cold, pulseless marble—tell her of the love-dream which had left him but the ashes of dead hope. He sealed the letter and placed it with the out-going morning mail.

"Darling, how I wish I had not parted from you that night!" he sighed.

How bitterly he regretted he could not live that one brief hour of his past life over again—how differently he would act!



CHAPTER XXVIII.

While Rex was penning his all-important letter in his room, Pluma was walking restlessly to and fro in her boudoir, conning over in her mind the events of the evening.

Rex had asked her to be his wife, but she stood face to face with the truth at last—he did not love her. It was not only a blow of the keenest and cruelest kind to her affection, but it was the cruelest blow her vanity could possibly have received.

To think that she, the wealthy, petted heiress, who counted her admirers by the score, should have tried so hard to win the love of this one man and have failed; that her beauty, her grace, her wit, and her talent had been lavished upon him, and lavished in vain. "Was that simple girl, with her shy, timid, shrinking manner, more lovable than I?" she asked herself, incredulously.

She could not realize it—she, whose name was on the lips of men, who praised her as the queen of beauty, and whom fair women envied as one who had but to will to win.

It seemed to her a cruel mockery of fate that she, who had everything the world could give—beauty and fortune—should ask but this one gift, and that it should be refused her—the love of the man who had asked her to be his wife.

Was it impossible that he should learn to love her?

She told herself that she should take courage, that she would persevere, that her great love must in time prevail.

"I must never let him find me dull or unhappy," she thought. "I must carefully hide all traces of pique or annoyance."

She would do her best to entertain him, and make it the study of her life to win his love.

She watched the stars until they faded from the skies, then buried her face in her pillow, falling into an uneasy slumber, through which a beautiful, flower-like, girlish face floated, and a slight, delicate form knelt at her feet holding her arms out imploringly, sobbing out:

"Do not take him from me—he is my world—I love him!"

And with a heart racked by terrible jealousy, Pluma turned uneasily on her pillow and opened her eyes. The stars were still glimmering in the moonlighted sky.

"Is the face of Daisy Brooks ever to haunt me thus?" she cried out, impatiently. "How was I to know she was to die?" she muttered, excitedly. "I simply meant to have Stanwick abduct her from the seminary that Rex might believe him her lover and turn to me for sympathy. I will not think of it," she cried; "I am not one to flinch from a course of action I have marked out for myself, no matter what the consequences may be, if I only gain Rex's love."

And Pluma, the bride soon to be, turned her flushed face again to the wall to dream again of Daisy Brooks.

She little dreamed Rex, too, was watching the stars, as wakeful as she, thinking of the past.

Then he prayed Heaven to help him, so that no unworthy thought should enter his mind. After that he slept, and one of the most painful days of his life was ended.

The days at Whitestone Hall flew by on rapid wings in a round of gayety. The Hall was crowded with young folks, who were to remain until after the marriage. Dinner parties were followed by May-pole dances out on the green lawns, and by charades and balls in the evening. The old Hall had never echoed with such frolicsome mirth before. Rex plunged into the excitement with strange zest. No one guessed that beneath his winning, careless smile his heart was almost breaking.

One morning Pluma was standing alone on the vine-covered terrace, waiting for Rex, who had gone out to try a beautiful spirited horse that had just been added to the stables of Whitestone Hall. She noticed he had taken the unfrequented road the magnolia-trees shaded. That fact bore no significance, certainly; still there was a strong feeling of jealousy in her heart as she remembered that little wooden cross he would be obliged to pass. Would he stop there? She could not tell.

"How I love him—and how foolish I am!" she laughed, nervously. "I have no rival, yet I am jealous of his very thoughts, lest they dwell on any one else but myself. I do not see how it is," she said, thoughtfully, to herself, "why people laugh at love, and think it weakness or a girl's sentimental folly. Why, it is the strongest of human passions!"

She heard people speak of her approaching marriage as "a grand match"—she heard him spoken of as a wealthy Southerner, and she laughed a proud, happy, rippling laugh. She was marrying Rex for love; she had given him the deepest, truest love of her heart.

Around a bend in the terrace she heard approaching footsteps and the rippling of girlish laughter.

"I can not have five minutes to myself to think," she said to herself, drawing hastily back behind the thick screen of leaves until they should pass. She did not feel in the humor just then to listen to Miss Raynor's chatter or pretty Grace Alden's gossip.

"Of course every one has a right to their own opinion," Grace was saying, with a toss of her pretty nut-brown curls, "and I, for one, do not believe he cares for her one whit."

"It is certainly very strange," responded Miss Raynor, thoughtfully. "Every one can see she is certainly in love with Rex; but I am afraid it is quite a one-sided affair."

"Yes," said Grace, laughing shyly, "a very one-sided affair. Why, have you ever noticed them together—how Pluma watches his face and seems to live on his smiles? And as for Rex, he always seems to be looking over her head into the distance, as though he saw something there far more interesting than the face of his bride-to-be. That doesn't look much like love or a contented lover."

"If you had seen him this morning you might well say he did not look contented," replied Miss Raynor, mysteriously. "I was out for a morning ramble, and, feeling a little tired, I sat down on a moss-covered stone to rest. Hearing the approaching clatter of a horse's hoofs, I looked up and saw Rex Lyon coming leisurely down the road. I could not tell you what prompted me to do it, but I drew quietly back behind the overhanging alder branches that skirted the brook, admiring him all unseen."

"Oh, dear!" cried Grace, merrily, "this is almost too good to keep. Who would imagine dignified Miss Raynor peeping admiringly at handsome Rex, screened by the shadows of the alders!"

"Now don't be ridiculous, Grace, or I shall be tempted not to tell you the most interesting part," returned Miss Raynor, flushing hotly.

"Oh, that would be too cruel," cried Grace, who delighted on anything bordering on mystery. "Do tell it."

"Well," continued Miss Raynor, dropping her voice to a lower key, "when he was quite opposite me, he suddenly stopped short and quickly dismounted from his horse, and picked up from the roadside a handful of wild flowers."

"What in the world could he want with them?" cried Grace, incredulously.

"Want with them!" echoed Miss Raynor. "Why, he pressed them to his lips, murmuring passionate, loving words over them. For one brief instant his face was turned toward me, and I saw there were tears standing in his eyes, and there was a look on his face I shall never forget to my dying day. There was such hopeless woe upon it—indeed one might have almost supposed, by the expression of his face, he was waiting for his death-sentence to be pronounced instead of a marriage ceremony, which was to give him the queenly heiress of Whitestone Hall for a bride."

"Perhaps there is some hidden romance in the life of handsome Rex the world does not know of," suggested Grace, sagely.

"I hope not," replied Miss Raynor. "I would hate to be a rival of Pluma Hurlhurst's. I have often thought, as I watched her with Rex, it must be terrible to worship one person so madly. I have often thought Pluma's a perilous love."

"Do not speak so," cried Grace. "You horrify me. Whenever I see her face I am afraid those words will be ringing in my ears—a perilous love."

Miss Raynor made some laughing rejoinder which Pluma, white and trembling behind the ivy vines, did not catch, and still discussing the affair, they moved on, leaving Pluma Hurlhurst standing alone, face to face with the truth, which she had hoped against hope was false. Rex, who was so soon to be her husband, was certainly not her lover.

Her keen judgment had told her long ago all this had come about through his mother's influence.

Every word those careless lips had uttered came back to her heart with a cruel stab.

"Even my guests are noticing his coldness," she cried, with a hysterical little sob. "They are saying to each other, 'He does not love me'—I, who have counted my triumphs by the scores. I have revealed my love in every word, tone and glance, but I can not awaken one sentiment in his proud, cold heart."

When she remembered the words, "He pressed them to his lips, murmuring passionate, loving words over them," she almost cried aloud in her fierce, angry passion. She knew, just as well as though she had witnessed him herself, that those wild flowers were daisies, and she knew, too, why he had kissed them so passionately. She saw the sun shining on the trees, the flower-beds were great squares and circles of color, the fountains sparkled in the sunlight, and restless butterflies flitted hither and thither.

For Pluma Hurlhurst, after that hour, the sunshine never had the same light, the flowers the same color, her face the same smile, or her heart the same joyousness.

Never did "good and evil" fight for a human heart as they struggled in that hour in the heart of the beautiful, willful heiress. All the fire, the passion, and recklessness of her nature were aroused.

"I will make him love me or I will die!" she cried, vehemently. "The love I long for shall be mine. I swear it, cost what it may!"

She was almost terribly beautiful to behold, as that war of passion raged within her.

She saw a cloud of dust arising in the distance. She knew it was Rex returning, but no bright flush rose to her cheek as she remembered what Miss Raynor had said of the wild flowers he had so rapturously caressed—he had given a few rank wild flowers the depths of a passionate love which he had never shown to her, whom he had asked to be his wife.

She watched him as he approached nearer and nearer, so handsome, so graceful, so winning, one of his white hands carelessly resting on the spirited animal's proudly arched, glossy neck, and with the other raising his hat from his brown curls in true courtly cavalier fashion to her, as he saw her standing there, apparently awaiting him on the rose-covered terrace.

He looked so handsome and lovable Pluma might have forgotten her grievance had she not at that moment espied, fastened to the lapel of his coat, a cluster of golden-hearted daisies.

That sight froze the light in her dark, passionate eyes and the welcome that trembled on her scarlet lips.

He leaped lightly from the saddle, and came quickly forward to meet her, and then drew back with a start.

"What is the matter, Pluma?" he asked, in wonder.

"Nothing," she replied, keeping her eyes fastened as if fascinated on the offending daisies he wore on his breast.

"I left you an hour ago smiling and happy. I find you white and worn. There are strange lights in your eyes like the slumbrous fire of a volcano; even your voice seems to have lost its tenderness. What is it, Pluma?"

She raised her dark, proud face to his. There was a strange story written on it, but he could not tell what it was.

"It—it is nothing. The day is warm, and I am tired, that is all."

"You are not like the same Pluma who kissed me when I was going away," he persisted. "Since I left this house something has come between you and me. What is it, Pluma?"

She looked up to him with a proud gesture that was infinitely charming.

"Is anything likely to come between us?" she asked.

"No; not that I know of," he answered, growing more and more puzzled.

"Then why imagine it?" she asked.

"Because you are so changed, Pluma," he said. "I shall never perhaps know the cause of your strange manner toward me, but I shall always feel sure it is something which concerns myself. You look at me as though you were questioning me," he said. "I wish you would tell me what is on your mind?"

"I do not suppose it could make the least difference," she answered, passionately. "Yes, I will tell you, what you must have been blind not to notice long ago. Have you not noticed how every one watches us with a peculiar smile on their lips as we come among them; and how their voices sink to a whisper lest we should overhear what they say? What is commented upon by my very guests, and the people all about us? Listen, then, it is this: Rex Lyon does not love the woman he has asked to be his wife. The frosts of Iceland could not be colder than his manner toward her. They say, too, that I have given you the truest and deepest love of my heart, and have received nothing in return. Tell me that it is all false, my darling. You do care for me, do you not, Rex? Tell me," she implored.

"Good heavens!" cried Rex, almost speechless in consternation; "do they dare say such things? I never thought my conduct could give rise to one reproach, one unkind thought."

"Tell me you do care for me, Rex," she cried. "I have been almost mad with doubt."

There was something in the lovely face, in the tender, pleading eyes, and quivering, scarlet mouth, that looked as if it were made for kisses—that Rex would have had to have been something more than mortal man to have resisted her pleading with sighs and tears for his love, and refuse it, especially as she had every reason to expect it, as he had asked her to be his wife. There was such a look of unutterable love on her face it fairly bewildered him. The passion in her voice startled him. What was he to do with this impetuous girl? Rex looked as if he felt exceedingly uncomfortable.

He took her in his arms and kissed her mechanically; he knew that was what she wanted and what she expected him to do.

"This must be my answer, dear," he said, holding her in a close embrace.

In that brief instant she had torn the daisies from the lapel of his coat with her white, jeweled fingers, tossed them to the earth, and stamped her dainty feet upon them, wishing in the depths of her soul she could crush out all remembrance from his heart of the young girl for whose memory this handsome lover of hers wore these wild blossoms on his breast.

As Rex looked down into her face he missed them, and quickly unclasped his arms from around her with a little cry.

Stooping down he instantly recovered his crushed treasures and lifted them reverently in his hand with a sigh.

"I can not say that I admire your taste, Rex," she said, with a short, hard laugh, that somehow grated harshly on her lover's ears. "The conservatories are blooming with rare and odorous flowers, yet you choose these obnoxious plants; they are no more or less than a species of weeds. Never wear them again, Rex—I despise them—throw them away, and I will gather you a rare bouquet of white hyacinths and starry jasmine and golden-rod bells."

The intense quiver in her voice pained him, and he saw her face wore the pallor of death, and her eyes were gleaming like restless fire.

"I will not wear them certainly if you dislike them, Pluma," he said, gravely, "but I do not care to replace them by any other; daisies are the sweetest flowers on earth for me."

He did not fasten them on his coat again, but transferred them to his breast-pocket. She bit her scarlet lips in impotent rage.

In the very moment of her supreme triumph and happiness he had unclasped his arms from about her to pick up the daisies she had crushed with her tiny heel—those daisies which reminded him of that other love that still reigned in his heart a barrier between them.



CHAPTER XXIX.

"I do think it is a perfect shame those horrid Glenn girls are to be invited up here to Rex's wedding," cried little Birdie Lyon, hobbling into the room where Mrs. Corliss sat, busily engaged in hemming some new table-linen, and throwing herself down on a low hassock at her feet, and laying down her crutch beside her—"it is perfectly awful."

"Why," said Mrs. Corliss, smoothing the nut-brown curls back from the child's flushed face, "I should think you would be very pleased. They were your neighbors when you were down in Florida, were they not?"

"Yes," replied the little girl, frowning, "but I don't like them one bit. Bess and Gertie—that's the two eldest ones, make me think of those stiff pictures in the gay trailing dresses in the magazines. Eve is nice, but she's a Tom-boy."

"A wh—at!" cried Mrs. Corliss.

"She's a Tom-boy, mamma always said; she romps, and has no manners."

"They will be your neighbors when you go South again—so I suppose your brother thought of that when he invited them."

"He never dreamed of it," cried Birdie; "it was Miss Pluma's doings."

"Hush, child, don't talk so loud," entreated the old housekeeper; "she might hear you."

"I don't care," cried Birdie. "I don't like her anyhow, and she knows it. When Rex is around she is as sweet as honey to me, and calls me 'pretty little dear,' but when Rex isn't around she scarcely notices me, and I hate her—yes, I do."

Birdie clinched her little hands together venomously, crying out the words in a shrill scream.

"Birdie," cried Mrs. Corliss, "you must not say such hard, cruel things. I have heard you say, over and over again, you liked Mr. Hurlhurst, and you must remember Pluma is his daughter, and she is to be your brother's wife. You must learn to speak and think kindly of her."

"I never shall like her," cried Birdie, defiantly, "and I am sure Mr. Hurlhurst don't."

"Birdie!" ejaculated the good lady in a fright, dropping her scissors and spools in consternation; "let me warn you not to talk so again; if Miss Pluma was to once hear you, you would have a sorry enough time of it all your after life. What put it into your head Mr. Hurlhurst did not like his own daughter?"

"Oh, lots of things," answered Birdie. "When I tell him how pretty every one says she is, he groans, and says strange things about fatal beauty, which marred all his young life, and ever so many things I can't understand, and his face grows so hard and so stern I am almost afraid of him."

"He is thinking of Pluma's mother," thought Mrs. Corliss—but she made no answer.

"He likes to talk to me," pursued the child, rolling the empty spools to and fro with her crutch, "for he pities me because I am lame."

"Bless your dear little heart," said Mrs. Corliss, softly stroking the little girl's curls; "it is seldom poor old master takes to any one as he has to you."

"Do I look anything like the little child that died?" questioned Birdie.

A low, gasping cry broke from Mrs. Corliss's lips, and her face grew ashen white. She tried to speak, but the words died away in her throat.

"He talks to me a great deal about her," continued Birdie, "and he weeps such bitter tears, and has such strange dreams about her. Why, only last night he dreamed a beautiful, golden-haired young girl came to him, holding out her arms, and crying softly: 'Look at me, father; I am your child. I was never laid to rest beneath the violets, in my young mother's tomb. Father, I am in sore distress—come to me, father, or I shall die!' Of course it was only a dream, but it makes poor Mr. Hurlhurst cry so; and what do you think he said?"

The child did not notice the terrible agony on the old housekeeper's face, or that no answer was vouchsafed her.

"'My dreams haunt me night and day,' he cried. 'To still this wild, fierce throbbing of my heart I must have that grave opened, and gaze once more upon all that remains of my loved and long-lost bride, sweet Evalia and her little child.' He was—"

Birdie never finished her sentence.

A terrible cry broke from the housekeeper's livid lips.

"My God!" she cried, hoarsely, "after nearly seventeen years the sin of my silence is about to find me out at last."

"What is the matter, Mrs. Corliss? Are you ill?" cried the startled child.

A low, despairing sob answered her, as Mrs. Corliss arose from her seat, took a step or two forward, then fell headlong to the floor in a deep and death-like swoon.

Almost any other child would have been terrified, and alarmed the household.

Birdie was not like other children. She saw a pitcher of ice-water on an adjacent table, which she immediately proceeded to sprinkle on the still, white, wrinkled face; but all her efforts failed to bring the fleeting breath back to the cold, pallid lips.

At last the child became fairly frightened.

"I must go and find Rex or Mr. Hurlhurst," she cried, grasping her crutch, and limping hurriedly out of the room.

The door leading to Basil Hurlhurst's apartments stood open—the master of Whitestone Hall sat in his easy-chair, in morning-gown and slippers, deeply immersed in the columns of his account-books.

"Oh, Mr. Hurlhurst," cried Birdie, her little, white, scared face peering in at the door, "won't you please come quick? Mrs. Corliss, the housekeeper, has fainted ever so long ago, and I can't bring her to!"

Basil Hurlhurst hurriedly arose and followed the now thoroughly frightened child quickly to the room where the old housekeeper lay, her hands pressed close to her heart, the look of frozen horror deepening on her face.

Quickly summoning the servants, they raised her from the floor. It was something more than a mere fainting fit. The poor old lady had fallen face downward on the floor, and upon the sharp point of the scissors she had been using, which had entered her body in close proximity to her heart. The wound was certainly a dangerous one. The surgeon, who was quickly summoned, shook his head dubiously.

"The wound is of the most serious nature," he said. "She can not possibly recover."

"I regret this sad affair more than I can find words to express," said Basil Hurlhurst, gravely. "Mrs. Corliss's whole life almost has been spent at Whitestone Hall. You tell me, doctor, there is no hope. I can scarcely realize it."

Every care and attention was shown her; but it was long hours before Mrs. Corliss showed signs of returning consciousness, and with her first breath she begged that Basil Hurlhurst might be sent for at once.

He could not understand why she shrunk from him, refusing his proffered hand.

"Tell them all to leave the room," she whispered. "No one must know what I have to say to you."

Wondering a little what she had to say to him, he humored her wishes, sending them all from the room.

"Now, Mrs. Corliss," he said, kindly drawing his chair up close by the bedside, "what is it? You can speak out without reserve; we are all alone."

"Is it true that I can not live?" she asked, eagerly scanning his face. "Tell me truthfully, master, is the wound a fatal one?"

"Yes," he said, sympathetically, "I—I—am afraid it is."

He saw she was making a violent effort to control her emotions. "Do not speak," he said, gently; "it distresses you. You need perfect rest and quiet."

"I shall never rest again until I make atonement for my sin," she cried, feebly. "Oh, master, you have ever been good and kind to me, but I have sinned against you beyond all hope of pardon. When you hear what I have to say you will curse me. Oh, how can I tell it! Yet I can not sleep in my grave with this burden on my soul."

He certainly thought she was delirious, this poor, patient, toil-worn soul, speaking so incoherently of sin; she, so tender-hearted—she could not even have hurt a sparrow.

"I can promise you my full pardon, Mrs. Corliss," he said, soothingly; "no matter on what grounds the grievance may be."

For a moment she looked at him incredulously.

"You do not know what you say. You do not understand," she muttered, fixing her fast-dimming eyes strangely upon him.

"Do not give yourself any uneasiness upon that score, Mrs. Corliss," he said, gently; "try to think of something else. Is there anything you would like to have done for you?"

"Yes," she replied, in a voice so hoarse and changed he could scarcely recognize it was her who had spoken; "when I tell you all, promise me you will not curse me; for I have sinned against you so bitterly that you will cry out to Heaven asking why I did not die long years ago, that the terrible secret I have kept so long might have been wrung from my lips."

"Surely her ravings were taking a strange freak," he thought to himself; "yet he would be patient with her and humor her strange fancy."

The quiet, gentle expression did not leave his face, and she took courage.

"Master," she said, clasping her hands nervously together, "would it pain you to speak of the sweet, golden-haired young girl-bride who died on that terrible stormy night nearly seventeen years ago?"

She saw his care-worn face grow white, and the lines of pain deepen around his mouth.

"That is the most painful of all subjects to me," he said, slowly. "You know how I have suffered since that terrible night," he said shudderingly. "The double loss of my sweet young wife and her little babe has nearly driven me mad. I am a changed man, the weight of the cross I have had to bear has crushed me. I live on, but my heart is buried in the grave of my sweet, golden-haired Evalia and her little child. I repeat, it is a painful subject, still I will listen to what you have to say. I believe I owe my life to your careful nursing, when I was stricken with the brain fever that awful time."

"It would have been better if I had let you die then, rather than live to inflict the blow which my words will give you. Oh, master!" she implored, "I did not know then what I did was a sin. I feared to tell you lest the shock might cost you your life. As time wore on, I grew so deadly frightened I dared not undo the mischief my silence had wrought. Remember, master, when you looked upon me in your bitterest, fiercest moments of agony, what I did was for your sake; to save your bleeding heart one more pang. I have been a good and faithful woman all my life, faithful to your interests."

"You have indeed," he responded, greatly puzzled as to what she could possibly mean.

She tried to raise herself on her elbows, but her strength failed her, and she sunk back exhausted on the pillow.

"Listen, Basil Hurlhurst," she said, fixing her strangely bright eyes upon his noble, care-worn face; "this is the secret I have carried in this bosom for nearly seventeen years: 'Your golden-haired young wife died on that terrible stormy night you brought her to Whitestone Hall;' but listen, Basil, 'the child did not!' It was stolen from our midst on the night the fair young mother died."



CHAPTER XXX.

"My God!" cried Basil Hurlhurst, starting to his feet, pale as death, his eyes fairly burning, and the veins standing out on his forehead like cords, "you do not know what you say, woman! My little child—Evalia's child and mine—not dead, but stolen on the night its mother died! My God! it can not be; surely you are mad!" he shrieked.

"It is true, master," she moaned, "true as Heaven."

"You knew my child, for whom I grieved for seventeen long years, was stolen—not dead—and dared to keep the knowledge from me?" he cried, passionately, beside himself with rage, agony and fear. "Tell me quickly, then, where I shall find my child!" he cried, breathlessly.

"I do not know, master," she moaned.

For a few moments Basil Hurlhurst strode up and down the room like a man bereft of reason.

"You will not curse me," wailed the tremulous voice from the bed; "I have your promise."

"I can not understand how Heaven could let your lips remain silenced all these long, agonizing years, if your story be true. Why, yourself told me my wife and child had both died on that never-to-be-forgotten night, and were buried in one grave. How could you dare steep your lips with a lie so foul and black? Heaven could have struck you dead while the false words were yet warm on your lips!"

"I dared not tell you, master," moaned the feeble voice, "lest the shock would kill you; then, after you recovered, I grew afraid of the secret I had dared to keep, and dared not tell you."

"And yet you knew that somewhere in this cruel world my little child was living—my tender, little fair-haired child—while I, her father, was wearing my life out with the grief of that terrible double loss. Oh, woman, woman, may God forgive you, for I never can, if your words be true."

"I feared such anger as this; that is why I dared not tell you," she whispered, faintly. "I appeal to your respect for me in the past to hear me, to your promise of forgiveness to shield me, to your love for the little child to listen calmly while I have strength to speak."

He saw she was right. His head seemed on fire, and his heart seemed bursting with the acute intensity of his great excitement.

He must listen while she had strength to tell him of his child.

"Go on—go on!" he cried, hoarsely, burying his face in the bed-clothes; "tell me of my child!"

"You remember the terrible storm, master, how the tree moaned, and without against the western wing—where your beautiful young wife lay dead, with the pretty, smiling, blue-eyed babe upon her breast?"

"Yes, yes—go on—you are driving me mad!" he groaned.

"You remember how you fell down senseless by her bedside when we told you the terrible news—the young child-bride was dead?"

She knew, by the quivering of his form, he heard her.

"As they carried you from the room, master, I thought I saw a woman's form gliding stealthily on before, through the dark corridors. A blaze of lightning illumined the hall for one brief instant, and I can swear I saw a woman's face—a white, mocking, gloriously beautiful face—strangely like the face of your first wife, master, Pluma's mother. I knew it could not be her, for she was lying beneath the sea-waves. It was not a good omen, and I felt sorely afraid and greatly troubled. When I returned to the room from which they had carried you—there lay your fair young wife with a smile on her lips—but the tiny babe that had slumbered on her breast was gone."

"Oh, God! if you had only told me this years ago," cried the unhappy father. "Have you any idea who could have taken the child? It could not have been for gain, or I should have heard of it long ago. I did not know I had an enemy in the wide world. You say you saw a woman's face?" he asked, thoughtfully.

"It was the ghost of your first wife," asserted the old housekeeper, astutely. "I never saw her face but once; but there was something about it one could not easily forget."

Basil Hurlhurst was not a superstitious man, yet he felt a strange, unaccountable dread stealing over him at the bare mention of such a thing. It was more than he could endure to hear the name of the wife he had loved, and the wife who slept beneath the wild sea-waves, coupled in one breath—the fair young wife he had idolized, and the dark, sparkling face of the wife who had brought upon him such wretched folly in his youth!

"Have you not some clew to give me?" he cried out in agony—"some way by which I can trace her and learn her fate?"

She shook her head.

"This is unbearable!" he cried, pacing up and down the room like one who had received an unexpected death-blow. "I am bewildered! Merciful Heaven! which way shall I turn? This accounts for my restlessness all these years, when I thought of my child—my restless longing and fanciful dreams! I thought her quietly sleeping on Evalia's breast. God only knows what my tender little darling has suffered, or in what part of the world she lives, or if she lives at all!"

It had been just one hour since Basil Hurlhurst had entered that room, a placid-faced, gray-haired man. When he left it his hair was white as snow from the terrible ordeal through which he had just passed.

He scarcely dared hope that he should yet find her—where or how he should find her, if ever.

In the corridor he passed groups of maidens, but he neither saw nor heard them. He was thinking of the child that had been stolen from him in her infancy—the sweet little babe with the large blue eyes and shining rings of golden hair.

He saw Pluma and Rex greeting some new arrivals out on the flower-bordered terrace, but he did not stop until he had reached his own apartments.

He did not send for Pluma, to divulge the wonderful discovery he had made. There was little sympathy or confidence between the father and daughter.

"I can never sleep again until I have some clew to my child!" he cried, frantically wringing his hands.

Hastily he touched the bell-rope.

"Mason," he said to the servant who answered the summons, "pack my valise at once. I am going to take the first train to Baltimore. You have no time to lose."

He did not hear the man's ejaculation of surprise as his eyes fell on the face of the master who stood before him with hair white as snow—so utterly changed in one short hour.

"You couldn't possibly make the next train, sir; it leaves in a few moments."

"I tell you you must make it!" cried Basil Hurlhurst. "Go and do as I bid you at once! Don't stand there staring at me; you are losing golden moments. Fly at once, I tell you!"

Poor old Mason was literally astounded. What had come over his kind, courteous master?

"I have nothing that could aid them in the search," he said to himself, pacing restlessly up and down the room. "Ah! stay!—there is Evalia's portrait! The little one must look like her mother if she is living yet!"

He went to his writing-desk and drew from a private drawer a little package tied with a faded ribbon, which he carefully untied with trembling fingers.

It was a portrait on ivory of a beautiful, girlish, dimpled face, with shy, upraised blue eyes, a smiling rosebud mouth, soft pink cheeks, and a wealth of rippling, sunny-golden hair.

"She must look like this," he whispered. "God grant that I may find her!"

"Mr. Rex Lyon says, please may he see you a few moments, sir," said Mason, popping his black head in at the door.

"No; I do not wish to see any one, and I will not see any one. Have you that satchel packed, I say?"

"Yes, sir; it will be ready directly, sir," said the man, obediently.

"Don't come to me with any more messages—lock everybody out. Do you hear me, Mason? I will be obeyed!"

"Yes, sir, I hear. No one shall disturb you."

Again Basil Hurlhurst turned to the portrait, paying little attention to what was transpiring around him. "I shall put it at once in the hands of the cleverest detectives," he mused; "surely they will be able to find some trace of my lost darling."

Seventeen years! Ah, what might have happened her in that time? The master of Whitestone Hall always kept a file of the Baltimore papers; he rapidly ran his eye down the different columns.

"Ah, here is what I want," he exclaimed, stopping short. "Messrs. Tudor, Peck & Co., Experienced Detectives, —— Street, Baltimore. They are noted for their skill. I will give the case into their hands. If they restore my darling child alive and well into my hands I will make them wealthy men—if she is dead, the blow will surely kill me."

He heard voices debating in the corridor without.

"Did you tell him I wished particularly to see him?" asked Rex, rather discomfited at the refusal.

"Yes, sir," said Mason, dubiously.

"Miss Pluma, his daughter, wishes me to speak with him on a very important matter. I am surprised that he so persistently refuses to see me," said Rex, proudly, wondering if Pluma's father had heard that gossip—among the guests—that he did not love his daughter. "I do not know that I have offended the old gentleman in any way," he told himself. "If it comes to that," he thought, "I can do no more than confess the truth to him—the whole truth about poor little Daisy—no matter what the consequences may be."

Fate was playing at cross-purposes with handsome Rex, but no subtle warning came to him.



CHAPTER XXXI.

The preparations for the wedding went steadily on. It was to be a magnificent affair. Inside and outside of Whitestone Hall fairly glowed with brilliancy and bloom.

Rex's deportment toward his promised bride was exemplary; he did his best to show her every possible attention and kindness in lieu of the love which should have been hers.

There seemed to be no cloud in Pluma Hurlhurst's heaven.

She had no warning of the relentless storm-cloud that was gathering above her head and was so soon to burst upon her in all its fury.

She walked among her guests with a joyous, happy smile and the air of a queen. Why should she not? On the morrow she would gain the prize she coveted most on earth—she would be Rex's wife.

Her father had gone unexpectedly to Baltimore, and the good old housekeeper had been laid to rest, but in the excitement and bustle attending the great coming event these two incidents created little comment.

Mirth and gayety reigned supreme, and the grim old halls resounded with laughter and song and gay young voices from morning until night.

Pluma, the spoiled, petted, willful heiress, was fond of excitement and gay throngs.

"Our marriage must be an event worthy of remembrance, Rex," she said, as they walked together through the grounds the morning before the wedding. "We must have something new and novel. I am tired of brilliant parlors and gas-light. I propose we shall have a beautiful platform built, covered with moss and roses, beneath the blossoming trees, with the birds singing in their boughs, upon which we shall be united. What do you think of my idea—is it not a pretty one?"

"Your ideas are always poetical and fanciful," said Rex, glancing down into the beautiful brilliant face beside him. "My thoughts are so dull and prosy compared with yours, are you not afraid you will have a very monotonous life-companion?"

"I am going to try my best to win you from that cold reserve. There must not be one shadow between us; do you know, Rex, I have been thinking, if anything should ever happen to take your love from me I should surely die. I—I am jealous of your very thoughts. I know I ought not to admit it, but I can not help it."

Rex flushed nervously; it was really embarrassing to him, the tender way in which she looked up to him—her black eyelids coyly drooping over her dark, slumbrous eyes, inviting a caress. He was certainly wooed against his will, but there was no help for it; he was forced to take up his part and act it out gracefully.

"You need not be jealous of my thoughts, Pluma," he replied, "for they were all of you."

"I wonder if they were pleasant thoughts?" she asked, toying with the crimson flower-bells she holds in her white hands. "I have heard you sigh so much of late. Are you quite happy, Rex?" she inquired, hesitatingly.

The abruptness of the question staggered him: he recovered his composure instantly, however.

"How can you ask me such a question, Pluma?" he asked, evasively; "any man ought to be proud of winning so peerless a treasure as you are. I shall be envied by scores of disappointed lovers, who have worshiped at your shrine. I am not as demonstrative as some might be under similar circumstances, but my appreciation is none the less keen."

She noticed he carefully avoided the word—love.

In after years Rex liked to remember that, yielding to a kindly impulse, he bent down and kissed her forehead.

It was the first time he had caressed her voluntarily; it was not love which prompted the action—only kindness.

"Perhaps you will love me some day with your whole heart, Rex?" she asked.

"You seem quite sure that I do not do that now?" he remarked.

"Yes," she said, clasping his arm more closely, "I often fear you do not, but as time passes you will give me all your affection. Love must win love."

Other young girls could not have made such an open declaration without rosy blushes suffusing their cheeks; they would have been frightened at their free-spoken words, even though the morrow was their wedding-day.

She stood before him in her tall, slim loveliness, as fair a picture as any man's eyes could rest on. She wore a most becoming dress, and a spring blossom was in her hair. Almost any other man's heart would have warmed toward her as she raised her dark eyes to his and the white fingers trembled on his arm.

Rex was young, impulsive, and mortal; tender words from such lovely lips would have intoxicated any man. Yet from that faithful heart of his the words did not take one thought that belonged to Daisy; he did his utmost to forget that sunny, golden memory.

To Pluma, handsome, courtly Rex was an enigma. In her own mind she liked him all the better because he had not fallen down and worshiped her at once. Most men did that.

For several moments they walked along in utter silence—until they had reached the brink of the dark pool, which lay quite at the further end of the inclosure.

Pluma gave a little shuddering scream:

"I did not mean to bring you here," she cried. "I always avoid this path; the waters of the pool have always had a great dread for me."

"It should be filled up," said Rex, "or fenced around; it is certainly a dangerous locality."

"It can not be filled up," she returned, laughingly; "it is said to be bottomless. I do not like to think of it; come away, Rex."

The magnificent bridal costume, ordered expressly from Paris, had arrived—perfect even to the last detail. The bride-maids' costumes were all ready; and to everything in and about the Hall the last finishing touches had been given.

All the young girls hovered constantly around Pluma, in girl-fashion admiring the costume, the veil, the wreath, and above all the radiantly beautiful girl who was to wear them. Even the Glenn girls and Grace Alden were forced to admit the willful young heiress would make the most peerless bride they had ever beheld.

Little Birdie alone held aloof, much to Rex's amusement and Pluma's intense mortification.

"Little children often take such strange freaks," she would say to Rex, sweetly. "I really believe your little sister intends never to like me; I can not win one smile from her."

"She is not like other children," he replied, with a strange twinkle in his eye. "She forms likes and dislikes to people from simply hearing their name. Of course I agree with you it is not right to do so, but Birdie has been humored more or less all her life. I think she will grow to love you in time."

Pluma's lips quivered like the lips of a grieving child.

"I shall try so hard to make her love me, because she is your sister, Rex."

He clasped the little jeweled hands that lay so confidingly within his own still closer, saying he knew she could not help but succeed.

The whole country-side was ringing with the coming marriage. No one could be more popular than handsome Rex Lyon, no one admired more than the young heiress of Whitestone Hall. The county papers were in ecstasies; they discussed the magnificent preparations at the Hall, the number of bride-maids, the superb wedding-presents, the arrangements for the marriage, and the ball to be given in the evening.

The minister from Baltimore who was to perform the ceremony was expected to arrive that day. That all preparations might be completed for the coming morrow, Rex had gone down to meet the train, and Pluma strolled into the conservatory, to be alone for a few moments with her own happy thoughts.

Out on the green lawns happy maidens were tripping here and there, their gay laughter floating up to her where she stood.

Every one seemed to be making the most of the happy occasion. Lawn-tennis parties here and croquet-parties there, and lovers strolling under the blossoming trees or reclining on the rustic benches—it was indeed a happy scene.

Pluma leaned her dark head against the fragrant roses. The breeze, the perfume of the flowers, all told one story to the impassioned girl—the story of her triumph and her mad, reckless love.

She gathered a spray of the fairest flowers, and fastened them in the bodice of her dress.

"To-morrow I shall have won the one great prize I covet," she murmured, half aloud. "After to-morrow I can defy Lester Stanwick to bring one charge against me. I shall be Rex's wife—it will avail him nothing."

"Speaking of angels, you often hear 'the rustle of their wings.' I believe there is an old adage of that sort, or something similar," said a deep voice beside her, and turning around with a low cry she saw Lester Stanwick himself standing before her.

For one moment her lips opened as though to utter a piercing cry, but even the very breath seemed to die upon them, they were so fixed and still.

The flowers she held in her hand fell into the fountain against which she leaned, but she did not heed them.

Like one fascinated, her eyes met the gaze of the bold, flashing dark ones bent so steadily upon her.

"You thought you would escape me," he said. "How foolish and blind you are, my clever plotter. Did you think I did not see through your clever maneuverings? There shall be a wedding to-morrow, but you shall marry me, instead of handsome, debonair Rex. You can not fly from your fate."

She set her lips firmly together. She had made a valiant struggle. She would defy him to the bitter end. She was no coward, this beautiful, imperious girl. She would die hard. Alas! she had been too sanguine, hoping Lester Stanwick would not return before the ceremony was performed.

The last hope died out of that proud, passionate heart—as well hope to divert a tiger from its helpless prey as expect Lester Stanwick to relinquish any plans he had once formed.

"I have fought my fight," she said to herself, "and have failed on the very threshold of victory, still, I know how to bear defeat. What do you propose to do?" she said, huskily. "If there is any way I can buy your silence, name your price, keeping back the truth will avail me little now. I love Rex, and no power on earth shall prevent me from becoming his wife."

Lester Stanwick smiled superciliously—drawing from his pocket a package of letters.

"Money could not purchase these charming billets-doux from me," he said. "This will be charming reading matter for the Honorable Rex Lyon, and the general public to discuss."

She raised her flashing eyes unflinchingly to his face, but no word issued from her white lips.

"A splendid morsel for the gossips to whisper over. The very refined and exclusive heiress of Whitestone Hall connives to remove an innocent rival from her path, by providing money for her to be sent off secretly to boarding-school, from which she is to be abducted and confined in a mad-house. Your numerous letters give full instructions; it would be useless to deny these accusations. I hold proof positive."

"That would not screen you," she said, scornfully.

"I did not carry out your plans. No matter what the intentions were, the points in the case are what actually happened. I can swear I refused to comply with your nefarious wishes, even though you promised me your hand and fortune if I succeeded," he answered, mockingly.

"Will not money purchase your silence?" she said, with a deep-drawn breath. "I do not plead with you for mercy or compassion," she said, haughtily.

Lester Stanwick laughed a mocking laugh.

"Do not mistake me, Miss Pluma," he said, making no attempt at love-making; "I prefer to wrest you from Rex Lyon. I have contemplated with intense satisfaction the blow to his pride. It will be a glorious revenge, also giving me a charming bride, and last, but not least, the possession at some future day of Whitestone Hall and the Hurlhurst Plantations. A pleasing picture, is it not, my dear?"



CHAPTER XXXII.

Pluma Hurlhurst never quailed beneath the cold, mocking glance bent upon her.

There was no hope for her; disgrace and ruin stared her in the face; she would defy even Fate itself to the bitter end with a heroism worthy of a better cause. In that hour and that mood she was capable of anything.

She leaned against a tall palm-tree, looking at him with a strange expression on her face, as she made answer, slowly:

"You may depend upon it, I shall never marry you, Lester Stanwick. If I do not marry Rex I shall go unmarried to the grave. Ah, no!" she cried desperately; "Heaven will have more mercy, more pity than to take him from me."

"What mercy or pity did you feel in thrusting poor little Daisy Brooks from his path?" asked Stanwick, sarcastically. "Your love has led you through dangerous paths. I should call it certainly a most perilous love."

She recoiled from him with a low cry, those words again still ringing in her ears, "A perilous love."

She laughed with a laugh that made even Stanwick's blood run cold—a horrible laugh.

"I do not grieve that she is dead," she said. "You ought to understand by this time I shall allow nothing to come between Rex and me."

"You forget the fine notions of honor your handsome lover entertains; it may not have occurred to you that he might object at the eleventh hour."

"He will not," she cried, fiercely, her bosom rising and falling convulsively under its covering of filmy lace and the diamond brooch which clasped it. "You do not know the indomitable will of a desperate woman," she gasped. "I will see him myself and confess all to him, if you attempt to reveal the contents of those letters. He will marry me and take me abroad at once. If I have Rex's love, what matters it what the whole world knows or says?"

She spoke rapidly, vehemently, with flushed face and glowing eyes; and even in her terrible anger Stanwick could not help but notice how gloriously beautiful she was in her tragic emotion.

"I have asked you to choose between us," he said, calmly, "and you have chosen Rex regardless of all the promises of the past. The consequences rest upon your own head."

"So be it," she answered, haughtily.

With a low bow Stanwick turned and left her.

"Au revoir, my dear Pluma," he said, turning again toward her on the threshold. "Not farewell—I shall not give up hope of winning the heiress of Whitestone Hall."

For several moments she stood quite still among the dark-green shrubs, and no sound told of the deadly strife and despair. Would he see Rex and divulge the crime she had planned? Ah! who would believe she, the proud, petted heiress had plotted so cruelly against the life of an innocent young girl because she found favor in the eyes of the lover she had sworn to win? Ah! who could believe she had planned to confine that sweet young life within the walls of a mad-house until death should release her?

What if the plan had failed? The intention still remained the same. She was thankful, after all, the young girl was dead.

"I could never endure the thought of Rex's intense anger if he once imagined the truth; he would never forgive duplicity," she cried, wildly.

The proud, beautiful girl, radiant with love and happiness a short time since, with a great cry flung herself down among the ferns, the sunlight gleaming on the jewels, the sumptuous morning dress, the crushed roses, and the white, despairing face.

Any one who saw Pluma Hurlhurst when she entered the drawing-room among her merry-hearted guests, would have said that she had never shed a tear or known a sigh. Could that be the same creature upon whose prostrate figure and raining tears the sunshine had so lately fallen? No one could have told that the brightness, the smiles, and the gay words were all forced. No one could have guessed that beneath the brilliant manner there was a torrent of dark, angry passions and an agony of fear.

It was pitiful to see how her eyes wandered toward the door. Hour after hour passed, and still Rex had not returned.

The hum of girlish voices around her almost made her brain reel. Grace Alden and Miss Raynor were singing a duet at the piano. The song they were singing fell like a death-knell upon her ears; it was "'He Cometh Not,' She Said."

Eve Glenn, with Birdie upon her lap, sat on an adjoining sofa flirting desperately with the two or three devoted beaus; every one was discussing the prospect of the coming morrow.

Her father had returned from Baltimore some time since. She was too much engrossed with her thoughts of Rex to notice the great change in him—the strange light in his eyes, or the wistful, expectant expression of his face, as he kissed her more fondly than he had ever done in his life before.

She gave appropriate answers to her guests grouped around her, but their voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were with Rex. Why had he not returned? What was detaining him? Suppose anything should happen—it would kill her now—yet nothing could go wrong on the eve of her wedding-day. She would not believe it. Stanwick would not dare go to Rex with such a story—he would write it—and all those things took time. With care and caution and constant watching she would prevent Rex from receiving any communications whatever until after the ceremony; then she could breathe freely, for the battle so bravely fought would be won.

"If to-morrow is as bright as to-day, Pluma will have a glorious wedding-day," said Bessie Glenn, smiling up into the face of a handsome young fellow who was fastening a rosebud she had just given him in the lapel of his coat with one hand, and with the other tightly clasping the white fingers that had held the rose.

He did not notice that Pluma stood in the curtained recesses of an adjoining window as he answered, carelessly enough:

"Of course, I hope it will be a fine, sunshiny day, but the indications of the weather don't look exactly that way, if I am any judge."

"Why, you don't think it is going to rain, do you? Why, it will spoil the rose-bower she is to be married in and all the beautiful decoration. Oh, please don't predict anything so awfully horrible; you make me feel nervous; besides, you know what everybody says about weddings on which the rain falls."

"Would you be afraid to experiment on the idea?" asked the impulsive young fellow, who always acted on the spur of the moment. "If to-morrow were a rainy day, and I should say to you, 'Bess, will you marry me to-day or never?' what would your answer be?"

"I should say, just now, I do not like 'ifs and ands.' Supposing a case, and standing face to face with it, are two different things. I like people who say what they mean, and mean what they say."

Pluma saw the dazzling light flame into the bashful young lover's eyes as he bent his head lower over the blushing girl who had shown him the right way to capture a hesitating heart.

"That is love," sighed Pluma. "Ah, if Rex would only look at me like that I would think this earth a heaven." She looked up at the bright, dazzling clouds overhead; then she remembered the words she had heard—"It looked like rain on the morrow."

Could those white, fleecy clouds darken on the morrow that was to give her the only treasure she had ever coveted in her life?

She was not superstitious. Even if it did rain, surely a few rain-drops could not make or mar the happiness of a lifetime. She would not believe it.

"Courage until to-morrow," she said, "and my triumph will be complete. I will have won Rex." The little ormolu clock on the mantel chimed the hour of five. "Heavens!" she cried to herself, "Rex has been gone over two hours. I feel my heart must be bursting."

No one noticed Pluma's anxiety. One moment hushed and laughing, the queen of mirth and revelry, then pale and silent, with shadowed eyes, furtively glancing down the broad, pebbled path that led to the entrance gate.

Yet, despite her bravery, Pluma's face and lips turned white when she heard the confusion of her lover's arrival.

Perhaps Pluma had never suffered more suspense in all her life than was crowded into those few moments.

Had he seen Lester Stanwick? Had he come to denounce her for her treachery, in his proud, clear voice, and declare the marriage broken off?

She dared not step forward to greet him, lest the piercing glance of his eyes would cause her to fall fainting at his feet.

"A guilty conscience needs no accuser." Most truly the words were exemplified in her case. Yet not one pang of remorse swept across her proud heart when she thought of the young girl whose life she had so skillfully blighted.

What was the love of Daisy Brooks, an unsophisticated child of nature, only the overseer's niece, compared to her own mighty, absorbing passion?

The proud, haughty heiress could not understand how Rex, polished, courteous and refined, could have stooped to such a reckless folly. He would thank her in years to come for sparing him from such a fate. These were the thoughts she sought to console herself with.

She stood near the door when he entered, but he did not see her; a death-like pallor swept over her face, her dark eyes had a wild, perplexing look.

She was waiting in terrible suspense for Rex to call upon her name; ask where she was, or speak some word in which she could read her sentence of happiness or despair in the tone of his voice.

She could not even catch the expression of his face; it was turned from her. She watched him so eagerly she hardly dared draw her breath.

Rex walked quickly through the room, stopping to chat with this one or that one a moment; still, his face was not turned for a single instant toward the spot where she stood.

Was he looking for her? She could not tell. Presently he walked toward the conservatory, and a moment later Eve Glenn came tripping toward her.

"Oh, here you are!" she cried, flinging her arms about her in regular school-girl abandon, and kissing the cold, proud mouth, that deigned no answering caress. "Rex has been looking for you everywhere, and at last commissioned me to find you and say he wants to speak to you. He is out on the terrace."

How she longed to ask if Rex's face was smiling or stern, but she dared not.

"Where did you say Rex was, Miss Glenn?"

"I said he was out on the terrace; but don't call me Miss Glenn, for pity's sake—it sounds so freezingly cold. Won't you please call me Eve," cried the impetuous girl—"simply plain Eve? That has a more friendly sound, you know."

Another girl less proud than the haughty heiress would have kissed Eve's pretty, piquant, upturned, roguish face.

"What did Rex have to say to her?" she asked herself, in growing dread.

The last hope seemed withering in her proud, passionate heart. She rose haughtily, and walked with the dignity of a queen through the long drawing-room toward the terrace. Her heart almost stopped beating as she caught sight of Rex leaning so gracefully against the trunk of an old gnarled oak tree, smoking a cigar. That certainly did not look as if he meant to greet her with a kiss.

She went forward hesitatingly—a world of anxiety and suspense on her face—to know her fate. The color surged over her face, then receded from it again, as she looked at him with a smile—a smile that was more pitiful than a sigh.

"Rex," she cried, holding out her hands to him with a fluttering, uncertain movement that stirred the perfumed laces of the exquisite robe she wore, and the jewels on her white, nervous hands—"Rex, I am here!"



CHAPTER XXXIII.

We must now return to Daisy, whom we left standing in the heart of the forest, the moonlight streaming on her upturned face, upon which the startled horseman gazed.

He had not waited for her to reply, but, touching his horse hastily with his riding-whip, he sped onward with the speed of the wind.

In that one instant Daisy had recognized the dark, sinister, handsome face of Lester Stanwick.

"They have searched the pit and found I was not there. He is searching for me; he has tracked me down!" she cried, vehemently, pressing her little white hands to her burning head.

Faster, faster flew the little feet through the long dew-damp grasses.

"My troubles seem closing more darkly around me," she sobbed. "I wish I had never been born, then I could never have spoiled Rex's life. But I am leaving you, my love, my darling, so you can marry Pluma, the heiress. You will forget me and be happy."

Poor little, neglected, unloved bride, so fair, so young, so fragile, out alone facing the dark terrors of the night, fleeing from the young husband who was wearing his life out in grief for her. Ah, if the gentle winds sighing above her, or the solemn, nodding trees had only told her, how different her life might have been!

"No one has ever loved me but poor old Uncle John!" She bent her fair young head and cried out to Heaven: "Why has no mercy been shown to me? I have never done one wrong, yet I am so sorely tried. Oh, mother, mother!" she cried, raising her blue eyes up to the starry sky, "if you could have foreseen the dark, cruel shadows that would have folded their pitiless wings over the head of your child, would you not have taken me with you down into the depths of the seething waters?" She raised up her white hands pleadingly as though she would fain pierce with her wrongs the blue skies, and reach the great White Throne. "I must be going mad," she said. "Why did Rex seek me out?" she cried, in anguish. "Why did Heaven let me love him so madly, and my whole life be darkened by living apart from him if I am to live? I had no thought of suffering and sorrow when I met him that summer morning. Are the summer days to pass and never bring him? Are the flowers to bloom, the sun to shine, the years to come and go, yet never bring him once to me? I can not bear it—I do not know how to live!"

If she could only see poor old, faithful John Brooks again she would kneel at his feet just as she had done when she was a little child, lay her weary head down on his toil-hardened hand, tell him how she had suffered, and ask him how she could die and end it all.

She longed so hungrily for some one to caress her, murmuring tender words over her. She could almost hear his voice saying as she told him her pitiful story: "Come to my arms, pet, my poor little trampled Daisy! You shall never want for some one to love you while poor old Uncle John lives. Bless your dear little heart!"

The longing was strongly upon her. No one would recognize her—she must go and see poor old John. She never thought what would become of her life after that.

At the station she asked for a ticket for Allendale. No one seemed to know of such a place. After a prolonged search on the map the agent discovered it to be a little inland station not far from Baltimore.

"We can sell you a ticket for Baltimore," he said, "and there you can purchase a ticket for the other road."