“I am going to Elmwood,” he cried, bitterly, “to prove this accusation is a cruel falsehood. Daisy has no lover; she is as sweet and pure as Heaven itself! I was mad to doubt her for a single instant.”
“Judge for yourself, Rex––seeing is believing,” said Pluma, maliciously, a smoldering vengeance burning in her flashing eyes, and a cold, cruel smile flitting across her face, while she murmured under her breath: “Go, fond, foolish lover; your fool’s paradise will be rudely shattered––ay, your hopes crushed worse than mine are now, for your lips can not wear a smile like mine when your heart is breaking. Good-bye, Rex,” she said, “and remember, in the hour when sorrow strikes you keenest, turn to me; my friendship is true, and shall never fail you.”
Rex bowed coldly and turned away; his heart was too sick for empty words, and the heavy-hearted young man, who slowly walked down the graveled path away from Whitestone Hall in the moonlight, was as little like the gay, handsome Rex of one short week ago as could well be imagined.
There was the scent of roses and honeysuckles in the soft wind; and some sweet-voiced bird awakened from sleep, and fancying it was day, swung to and fro amid the green foliage, filling the night with melody. The pitying stars shone down upon him from the moonlighted heavens; but the still, solemn beauty of the night was lost upon Rex. He regretted––oh! so bitterly––that he had parted from his sweet little girl-bride, fearing his mother’s scornful anger, or through a sense of mistaken duty.
“Had they but known little Daisy is my wife, they would have known how impossible was their accusation that she was with Lester Stanwick.”
He shuddered at the very thought of such a possibility.
The thought of Daisy, his little girl-bride, being sent to school amused him.
“Poor little robin!” he murmured. “No wonder she flew from her bondage when she found the cage-door open! How pleased the little gypsy will be to see me!” he mused. “I will clasp the dear little runaway in my arms, and never let her leave me again! Mother could not help loving my little Daisy if she were once to see her, and sister Birdie would take to her at once.”
The next morning broke bright and clear; the sunshine drifted through the green foliage of the trees, and crimson-breasted 63 robins sung their sweetest songs in the swaying boughs of the blossoming magnolias; pansies and buttercups gemmed the distant hill-slope, and nature’s fountain––a merry, babbling brook––danced joyously through the clover banks. No cloud was in the fair, blue, smiling heavens; no voice of nature warned poor little Daisy, as she stood at the open window drinking in the pure, sweet beauty of the morning of the dark clouds which were gathering over her innocent head, and of the storm which was so soon to burst upon her in all its fury. Daisy turned away from the window with a little sigh. She did not see a handsome, stalwart figure hurrying down the hill-side toward the cottage. How her heart would have throbbed if she had only known Rex (for it was he) was so near her! With a strangely beating heart he advanced toward the little wicket gate, at which stood one of the sisters, busily engaged pruning her rose-bushes.
“Can you tell me, madame, where I can find the Misses Burton’s cottage?” he asked, courteously lifting his hat.