But when that morrow dawned—and at the picture that rose in her mind Azalia sobbed aloud—the girl awoke from slumber and found beneath her breast a little, pulseless form, from which breath had so lately fled that the body was still limp and warm. Poor, puny babe! its feeble little life was ended, she thought, as she clasped and kissed it with raining tears and breaking heart.
A few minutes later her good friend came in and found what had happened. She mingled her tears with those of the bereaved mother.
But they had little time to weep together, for presently Poky said, anxiously:
"Oh, dear, this is dreadful! I don't know what to do! Sam and me had a dreadful fuss this morning, and he said I gadded about too much, and he's gwine ter watch and see whar I goes ter. He's been a-drinkin' agin, the most owdacious raskil he is in his drams that I ever see in all my born days! Cross as a boar with a sore head, dat he is!"
The moaning girl, who was rocking the dead baby on breast, uttered a cry of fear, and Poky continued:
"De reason why he's got ter drinkin' and cuttin' up ag'in is case why somebuddy has up an' robbed him whilst he war away courtin' me. You don't happen ter know nothin' 'bout some papers dat was hid under de flatstone ob de h'arth, does you, Miss Flower, honey?" Poky whispered, anxiously.
In her great grief over her dead child, Flower could not remember for a moment, and she was about to reply in the negative, when suddenly there flashed over her a memory of the night when Mrs. Fielding had gone mad and attempted her life.
She remembered what Jewel had uttered so triumphantly that night, declaring that she had found the papers that her mother had sought in vain in the cabin—the fatal diary of Charley Fielding.
Flower hesitated a moment lest she should do wrong in betraying her half-sister; then her gratitude to this good woman overpowered all other considerations, and she told her briefly that Jewel had taken the papers, but that they related to important family matters alone, and could have been of no use to Sam.
Poky was glad to find out so much, and then she took the little child gently from the weeping mother, and, folding it reverently in her shawl, said, gently, though anxiously: