The words died away on her white lips, and the sound died away in her throat. She saw him recoil from her with a look of white, frozen horror on his face which gave place to stern, bitter wrath. Slowly and sadly he put her clinging arms away from him, folding his arms across his breast with that terrible look upon his face such as a hero’s face wears when he has heard, unflinchingly, his death sentence––the calm of terrible despair.
“Daisy,” he said, proudly, “I have trusted you blindly, for I loved you madly, passionately. I would as soon believe the fair smiling heavens that bend above us false as you whom I loved so madly and so well. I was mad to bind you with such cruel, irksome bonds when your heart was not mine but another’s. My dream of love is shattered now. You have broken my heart and ruined and blighted my life. God forgive you, Daisy, for I never can! I give you back your freedom; 65 I release you from your vows; I can not curse you––I have loved you too well for that; I cast you from my heart as I cast you from my life; farewell, Daisy––farewell forever!”
She tried to speak, but her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. Oh, pitying Heaven, if she could only have cried out to you and the angels to bear witness and proclaim her innocence! The strength to move hand or foot seemed suddenly to have left her. She tried hard, oh! so hard, to speak, but no sound issued from her white lips. She felt as one in a horrible trance, fearfully, terribly conscious of all that transpired around her, yet denied the power to move even a muscle to defend herself.
“Have you anything to say to me, Daisy?” he asked, mournfully, turning from her to depart.
The woful, terrified gaze of the blue eyes deepened pitifully, but she spoke no word, and Rex turned from her––turned from the girl-bride whom he loved so madly, with a bursting, broken heart, more bitter to bear than death itself––left her alone with the pitying sunlight falling upon her golden hair, and her white face turned up to heaven, silently praying to God that she might die then and there.
Oh, Father above, pity her! She had no mother’s gentle voice to guide her, no father’s strong breast to weep upon, no sister’s soothing presence. She was so young and so pitifully lonely, and Rex had drifted out of her life forever, believing her––oh, bitterest of thoughts!––believing her false and sinful.
Poor little Daisy was ignorant of the ways of the world; but a dim realization of the full import of the terrible accusation brought against her forced its way to her troubled brain.
She only realized––Rex––her darling Rex, had gone out of her life forever.
Daisy flung herself face downward in the long, cool, waving green grass where Rex had left her.
“Daisy,” called Miss Burton, softly, “it is all over; come into the house, my dear.”