“I thought so,” muttered the woman, triumphantly. “Now, listen, Pluma; I want you to do exactly as I bid you. I want you to go quickly and quietly, and bring me the longest and thinnest one. You are not to breathe one word of this to any living soul. Do you understand, Pluma––I command you to do it.”
“Yes,” answered the child, dubiously.
“Stay!” she called, as the child was about to turn from her. “Why is the house lighted up to-night?”
Again the reckless spirit of the child flashed forth.
“My father has brought home his bride,” she said. “Don’t you see him bending over her, toward the third window yonder?”
The woman’s eyes quickly followed in the direction indicated.
Was it a curse the woman muttered as she watched the fair, golden-haired young girl-wife’s head resting against Basil Hurlhurst’s breast, his arms clasped lovingly about her?
“Go, Pluma!” she commanded, bitterly.
Quickly and cautiously the child sped on her fatal errand through the storm and the darkness. A moment later she had returned with the key which was to unlock a world of misery to so many lives.