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 136 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.”