"Yes, dear boy, I know, and presently I will break it all to her, and let you go into her room. But I have so much to tell you, and you had better hear it first. Be patient a little while, please."
"I will listen, mother, because you insist on it; but I can not promise to be patient," he answered, gravely.
"But, Laurie, it is better I should tell you, for if I do not, Flower will insist on telling all herself, and she is too weak for that. It is only this: Among the papers that Jewel Fielding had hidden away was the diary of that poor, weak Charley Fielding—a book like himself, full of good and evil. And what do you think? Why, it was Flower's mother after all who was his legal wife."
"Mother!" radiantly.
"Yes," she said, hurrying on. "But he treated her badly, poor thing. It was a secret marriage, and when she begged to have it made public, to save her fair fame, he quarreled with her, and declared that the marriage ceremony had been a sham. Then he married the heiress for her money. But she was so jealous she made him repent of his sin. Oh, it would make you weep to read the poor, erring soul's diary, it is so full of grief and remorse, and—well he killed himself, you know."
"Yes," he said, then his splendidly handsome face grew dark with anger. "And to think," he said, bitterly, "that Jewel Fielding knew all this yet could be capable of such infamous cruelty!"
Mrs. Meredith's face grew solemn.
"Poor Jewel, you must not think too hardly of her, Laurie," she said, with womanly compassion. "Remember the jealous nature and the taint of madness that she inherited from her mother. Remember her fatal love for you that set into active motion the wickedest elements of her strange nature."
"I can remember all; but it will still be impossible for me to forgive her all that she made my darling suffer," he replied.