Then she sent them all out, and sat down in the parlor to watch Flower, who still lay on the floor breathing faintly, but in such a weak and dazed condition that she realized nothing of what had happened or of what was going on around her, still less of the baleful black eyes that watched her so malevolently, as Jewel said to herself:
"My mother is crazed, and the task of punishing this hated girl has fallen from her hands to mine. Let me think over all the most horrible things I have ever heard of, and decide what I can do to make her suffer the longest and worst in return for the torments I have borne since she took my lover from me. Oh, I hate her as bitterly as my mother hated her mother, and I swear I will have vengeance for my wrongs!"
And those beautiful, evilly splendid black eyes, as they floated over poor Flower's silent, unconscious form, looked baleful enough for their very glances to kill.
[CHAPTER XV.]
Presently the house-maid put her head in at the door, giving Jewel a violent start.
"Has the doctor come?" she asked.
"No, miss; but me and the cook thinks we had better carry Miss Flower upstairs and put her to bed," Tibbie replied, with a compassionate look at the silent form upon the floor.
Jewel frowned and considered a moment, then gave her assent to the plan.
Then she added: