Throwing back her thick veil, she exclaimed, harshly:
"What is all this excitement, old man? I commanded you to perform this work quietly and in silence."
Flower drew back with a startled cry. It was Mrs. Fielding.
The old sexton had leaped into the grave. There was a sound as of the tearing of rotten planks. A minute's silence, then he looked up at the imperious woman, whose eyes burned like fire under her dark brows and snowy-white hair.
"The Lord has put your foolish vengeance out of your power, ma'am," he said, with stern awe. "There ain't nothin' here but a little heap o' ashes. I told you so; I told you that poor, wronged woman was dust and ashes along o' your little babby. But you wouldn't listen. Look, now, for yourself."
She moved forward, as did all the group, except the frightened, shrinking Flower, and when she saw, down there in the darkness of the grave, the commingling ashes of her dead rival and her dead child she uttered a tigerish cry of rage and hate, and fell in a swoon upon the green turf.
At that sight Flower forgot everything, except that the unconscious woman had given her for seventeen years a mother's love and received from her a child's affection. She ran to Mrs. Fielding's side, knelt by her, loosened her dress at the throat, and tore off the heavy veil to give her air.
"Come, sexton, what is all this? Why did you open Daisy Forrest's grave?" a stern voice demanded of the sexton, who was already hastening to replace the earth upon the violated grave.
The old man looked up, and saw a tall man of about fifty, stoutly built, plainly dressed, and wearing gray whiskers of an English cut. There was a gleam of stern displeasure in his eyes, and the sexton answered, sulkily: