CHAPTER IX.
“Where is Miss Brooks?” cried Mme. Whitney, excitedly, upon opening her eyes. “Jenkins,” she cried, motioning to 46 the attendant who stood nearest her, “see that Miss Brooks is detained in her own room under lock and key until I am at liberty to attend to her case.”
The servants looked at one another in blank amazement. No one dared tell her Daisy had fled.
The torn envelope, which Daisy had neglected to gain possession of, lay at her feet.
With a curious smile Mme. Whitney smoothed it out carefully, and placed it carefully away in her private desk.
“Rex Lyon,” she mused, knitting her brow. “Ah, yes, that was the name, I believe. He must certainly be the one. Daisy Brooks shall suffer keenly for this outrage,” cried the madame, grinding her teeth with impotent rage. “I shall drag her pride down to the very dust beneath my feet. How dare the little rebel defy my orders? I shall have her removed to the belfry-room; a night or two there will humble her pride, I dare say,” fumed the madame, pacing up and down the room. “I have brought worse tempers than hers into subjection; still I never dreamed the little minx would dare openly defy me in that manner. I shall keep her in the belfry-room, under lock and key, until she asks my pardon on her bended knees; and what is more, I shall wrest the secret from her––the secret she has defied me to discover.”
On sped Daisy, as swift as the wind, crushing the fatal letter in her bosom, until she stood at the very edge of the broad, glittering Chesapeake. The rosy-gold rays of the rising sun lighted up the waves with a thousand arrowy sparkles like a vast sea of glittering, waving gold. Daisy looked over her shoulder, noting the dark forms hurrying to and fro.
“They are searching for me,” she said, “but I will never go back to them––never!”
She saw a man’s form hurrying toward her. At that moment she beheld, moored in the shadow of a clump of alders at her very feet, a small boat rocking to and fro with the tide. Daisy had a little boat of her own at home; she knew how to use the oars.