Love must have something to do with it, he thought, grimly. Whenever he saw such a hopeless, despairing look on a young and beautiful face he always set it down as a love case in his own mind, and in nine cases out of ten he was right.
“Ah! it is the old, old story,” he muttered. “A pretty, romantic school-girl, and some handsome, reckless lover,” and something very much like an imprecation broke from his lips, thorough man of the world though he was, as he ruminated on the wickedness of men.
Two days before the marriage of Rex and Pluma was to be solemnized, poor little Daisy awoke to consciousness, her blue eyes resting on the joyous face of Mrs. Tudor, who bent over her with bated breath, gazing into the upraised eyes, turned so wonderingly upon her.
“You are to keep perfectly quiet, my dear,” said Mrs. Tudor, pleasantly, laying her hands on Daisy’s lips as she attempted to speak. “You must not try to talk or to think; 169 turn your face from the light, and go quietly to sleep for a bit, then you shall say what you please.”
Daisy wondered who the lady was, as she obeyed her like an obedient, tired child––the voice seemed so motherly, so kind, and so soothing, as she lay there, trying to realize how she came there. Slowly all her senses struggled into life, her memory came back, her mind and brain grew clear. Then she remembered walking into the cool, shady garden, and the dizziness which seemed to fall over her so suddenly. “I must have fainted last night,” she thought. She also remembered Pluma bending so caressingly over her young husband in the moonlight, and that the sight had almost driven her mad, and, despite her efforts to suppress her emotion, she began to sob aloud.
Mrs. Tudor hurried quickly to the bedside. She saw at once the ice from the frozen fountain of memory had melted.
“If you have any great sorrow on your mind, my dear, and wish to see Mr. Tudor, I will call him at once. He is in the parlor.”
“Please don’t,” sobbed Daisy. “I don’t want to see anybody. I must go home to Uncle John at once. Have I been here all night?”
“Why, bless your dear little heart, you have been here many a night and many a week. We thought at one time you would surely die.”
“I wish I had,” moaned Daisy. In the bitterness of her sorely wounded heart she said to herself that Providence had done everything for her without taking her life.