"Running away! Flower running away! But why? What reason—"
Spite of Flower's frantic struggles Jewel tore the shrouding cloak from her sister's form.
"Reason! ha, ha! Look at her one moment and you will see her reason!" she laughed, in bitter triumph; and Mrs. Fielding, after one wild, searching glance, threw up her thin white hands and uttered a shriek of horror and anger combined.
Jewel sprung quickly to her mother's side.
"Do not take it so hard, mamma," she cried, eagerly, with blazing eyes. "Her disgrace can not touch you nor me! Oh, mamma, I have fathomed the secret that has tortured you so long! This is the girl that was foisted on you by your faithless husband in place of my dead twin sister! This Flower is Daisy Forrest's daughter!"
[CHAPTER XIII.]
It was a tragic moment in the lives of the three who stood in that closed room looking into one another's faces with dilated eyes.
Flower had fallen on her knees and dropped her shamed face in her hands when Jewel tore away her cloak. But at those startling words, uttered so triumphantly by her twin sister, the little white hands fell helplessly at her sides, and the blue eyes stared in bewilderment at her mother.
Did she hear aright? Was she dreaming, or was that Jewel, her twin sister, plucking eagerly at her mother's sleeve and saying such strange things in that hard, triumphant voice.