"No, mammy; the preacher could not save me now, after what I have done. Mammy, pray sometimes for my poor, lost soul—the coward soul, too weak to do right, yet not brave enough to bear the ills it wrought. Will prayers do any good then, I wonder? Ah—Daisy—love—wife!"
A gasp, and the erring soul had fled.
Maria's groan rose simultaneously with a terrible cry.
Mrs. Fielding had dragged herself to the library and heard all. She spurned the dead body with her foot.
"He died with her name upon his lips," she hissed, "and I am his wedded wife!"
[CHAPTER II.]
All this was long ago, and for seventeen years the grass had been growing over the neglected graves of Daisy Forrest and Charlie Fielding. The woman who bore his name, the mother of his children, had long ago fled from the little Southern village that had been the scene of such blighting scandal and bitter tragedy, and made her home many miles away from that hated spot, far enough, she hoped, to bring up her children out of all knowledge or hearing of the bitter past.
Into her new home and her new life none of her old household accompanied her, save old Maria. Since her husband's death the cruel Civil War had swept over the land and freed the slaves that belonged to the heiress, whose gold had tempted Charlie Fielding to sin. Every one deserted their mistress gladly, none remaining but Maria, who had belonged to her husband. She remained, although not for love of her mistress. She could not desert Massa Charlie's children, she said.
These two, Jewel and Flower, as their mother persisted in calling them, had grown up so beautiful and charming that no one could decide to which belonged the palm of greater beauty. Paris himself would have been in despair, and the golden apple must have been divided, or never awarded to either.