CHAPTER XIII.
Rex had hoped against hope.
“Daisy!” he cried, holding out his arms to her with a yearning, passionate cry. “My God! tell me it is false––you are not here with Stanwick––or I shall go mad! Daisy, my dear little sweetheart, my little love, why don’t you speak?” he cried, clasping her close to his heart and covering her face and hair and hands with passionate, rapturous kisses.
Daisy struggled out of his embrace, with a low, broken sob, flinging herself on her knees at his feet with a sharp cry.
“Daisy,” said the old lady, bending over her and smoothing back the golden hair from the lovely anguished face, “tell him the truth, dear. You are here with Mr. Stanwick; is it not so?”
The sudden weight of sorrow that had fallen upon poor, hapless Daisy seemed to paralyze her very senses. The sunshine seemed blotted out, and the light of heaven to grow dark around her.
“Yes,” she cried, despairingly; and it almost seemed to Daisy another voice had spoken with her lips.
“This Mr. Stanwick claims to be your husband?” asked the old lady, solemnly.
“Yes,” she cried out again, in agony, “but, Rex, I––I––”