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.