First of all, she sought humble lodgings at a little third-class hotel, and here she soon learned the location of the cemetery, and set out to visit the graves of her father and mother.
She had no difficulty in finding the handsome inclosure wherein all of the dead and gone Fieldings were interred. It was the pride of the cemetery, just as the Fieldings had been the pride of the town ere their last descendant, handsome, erring, wretched Charley Fielding had flung himself madly into a suicide's awful grave.
Flower sat down among the cold marble monuments, trailing vines, and sweet tea-roses, and fixed her eyes on the small, unpretentious stone that recorded the death of her wretched young father.
Out of her abundant wealth his widow had spared but little for his grave-stone. Her resentment had been too strong and enduring, and followed him beyond the grave.
Crushed and despairing, the unhappy girl sat among the graves of her ancestors, with her golden head bowed low as she reflected that the bond that united them was one of bitter shame and woe.
It was too hard to linger there long, bowed down with shame and sorrow. She moved away presently to seek the place where her erring mother had been laid to rest, and so came upon the old sexton busily digging a grave. There were a few loiterers about, and a veiled lady sat in the shadow of a weeping willow near by, but Flower noticed no one. She went toward the old man, and asked, timidly:
"Will you tell me where to find the grave of Daisy Forrest?"
The old man looked up, their eyes met, he staggered back, and dropped his spade, uttering a cry of terror:
"Good Lord deliver me!"
The veiled lady, under the drooping branches of the willow, did not seem to notice, but some of the people who were walking about the paths came closer, curious to know what had happened to the old sexton.