After Annette’s accident and the cruel failure of Daisie’s letter to reach Dallas, there seemed nothing left to hope for now. Daisie determined to leave Gull Beach and return to the city.
When Royall Sherwood came to call the next evening she bid him farewell, saying that she was going to New York the next day.
He cried out reproachfully:
“You will return to a life of toil and hardship rather than accept my name and wealth?”
“Do not bring that subject up again,” she answered wearily; and he went away in despair, to seek his cousin’s advice.
“She is going away, she will be lost to me in the vortex of the wide world! Oh, Lutie, put your wits to work, you women are so shrewd! Is there no way to detain her longer at Gull Beach till she softens toward me?”
“I will think it over, and tell you in the morning,” she replied.
CHAPTER XI.
SHE COULD NEVER FORGET.
Daisie was very busy the next morning packing her trunk, when Aunt Alice came upstairs, bringing Mrs. Fleming’s card.
“It’s that pretty little lady from Sea View, Mr. Sherwood’s cousin. You must drop everything and go down,” she said, with an authority that admitted no dispute; so Daisie pushed the tumbled lovelocks from her brow with a weary hand, and went down most reluctantly to meet her guest, who had scolded her so vigorously at their last meeting.