Her brain whirled; she seemed, to live ages in those few moments. 92 Should she throw herself on her knees, and cry out to him, “Oh, Rex, Rex, my darling! I am not guilty! Listen to me, my love. Hear my pleading––listen to my prayer! I am more sinned against than sinning. My life has been as pure as an angel’s––take me back to your heart, or I shall die!”
“She has been so good to me, Rex,” whispered Birdie, clinging to the veil which covered Daisy’s face. “I broke my crutch, and she has carried me from the stone wall; won’t you please thank her for me, brother?”
Daisy’s heart nearly stopped beating; she knew the eventful moment of her life had come, when Rex, her handsome young husband, turned courteously toward her, extending his hand with a winning smile.
CHAPTER XIX.
On the day following Rex’s return home, and the morning preceding the events narrated in our last chapter, Mrs. Theodore Lyon sat in her dressing-room eagerly awaiting her son; her eyebrows met in a dark frown and her jeweled hands were locked tightly together in her lap.
“Rex is like his father,” she mused; “he will not be coerced in this matter of marriage. He is reckless and willful, yet kind of heart. For long years I have set my heart upon this marriage between Rex and Pluma Hurlhurst. I say again it must be!” Mrs. Lyon idolized her only son. “He would be a fitting mate for a queen,” she told herself. The proud, peerless beauty of the haughty young heiress of Whitestone Hall pleased her. “She and no other shall be Rex’s wife,” she said.
When Rex accepted the invitation to visit Whitestone Hall she smiled complacently.
“It can end in but one way,” she told herself; “Rex will bring Pluma home as his bride.”