"Then we may as well say farewell forever," Laurie Meredith answered, sorrowfully.
"But you will come back in a year, Laurie; perhaps mamma will change her mind in that time," she whispered.
"Oh, yes, she may," he answered, bitterly. "But it is much more likely, Flower, that she will spirit you away from here, and cover up her tracks so cleverly that I shall never find you again. Do you realize that, my darling?"
A frightened sob told that she did, and in the fear of losing her lover forever Flower was at length persuaded to do as he wished.
They made all their plans for the marriage and elopement, and then Flower stole back to the house to spend a sleepless night thinking of the rebellious step she was about to take, and trembling at the thought of her mother's and sister's anger when they should find that she had fled with her handsome lover.
[CHAPTER IX.]
Absorbed in her efforts to find out her mother's secret, Jewel Fielding did not watch her twin sister as closely as she might otherwise have done, so Flower had many opportunities of meeting her lover in secret, while Jewel, who knew that her sister was usually docile and obedient, did not suspect that the lovely girl was secretly transgressing her mother's commands and meeting Laurie Meredith every night in the pretty grounds that surrounded the house.
But a baleful chance brought her to a knowledge of the truth.
She had tried by every hint and innuendo at her command to worry her mother's secret out of her possession, but vainly. Mrs. Fielding could not be surprised into a betrayal of herself, and betrayed the bitterest anger and impatience whenever Jewel referred to the subject. Indeed, she had changed greatly toward her daughters. From loving them in the most devoted maternal fashion she seemed at times to dislike and almost hate them. She spent the greater part of her time alone in her room, refusing their company, and brooding bitterly over the revelation made to her by old Maria when on her death-bed.