"When you come down, you had better lock the door, as she might try to run away. In fact, she was about to do so this evening, but mamma prevented her. Although she has proved so bad, and disgraced the family, we intend to keep her at home and take care of her."
The kind-hearted Tibbie murmured an approval of this kindness, and with the cook's assistance, soon had Flower undressed and placed in bed. Then seeing that she was still in a dazed and half-unconscious condition, and either unable or disinclined to speak, they shaded the lamp and withdrew, locking the door as ordered, and giving the key to the triumphant Jewel.
In the meantime the physician arrived and pronounced Mrs. Fielding temporarily insane.
"I will leave soothing medicine for her, and I will send two nurses from town, for she will have violent paroxysms, and it will take at least two people to restrain her from doing harm to herself or others," he said, and took leave, wondering at the coolness and self-command of this beautiful young girl, whose bright eyes were not dimmed by a tear, as he explained to her the terrible condition of her mother.
He would have been more surprised if he could have read the thoughts of that vindictive heart.
"So she is really insane!" she said to herself. "I am glad of that. There will be no one now to interfere with my plans for Flower. It is true she would have killed her if she had been let alone, but I do not want her to die yet. I want her to live and wither under the shame of her birth, and under the agony of her desertion by Laurie Meredith. I will torment her as much as I can until the child is born, then I hope she will die, and the brat, too, so that when Laurie Meredith comes back I can have the pleasure of telling him that they are dead, and showing him their graves."
Her passionate, jealous love for handsome Laurie Meredith was mixed with hate now, and she delighted in stabbing his heart as he had stabbed hers when he turned from her dark, dazzling charms to her sister's fair, angelic beauty.
Going to her room, she unlocked her trunk and took out some papers, over which she gloated with fierce delight.
"Although I long for power and gold, millions could not buy these from me, for my sweet revenge is better than gold! Ah, how cleverly I parted them! They outwitted me when they managed to steal away and get married, but I've kept them apart ever since, I've made them pay dearly for their temerity!" she cried, exultantly.
The papers she held were the half-burned diary of Charley Fielding, the marriage-certificate and card she had stolen from Flower's desk, and the note she had intercepted on its way to Flower, together with several letters that Laurie Meredith had written to his wife since his departure, and which, through Jewel's clever plotting, she had failed to receive.