"But of course my Daisy didn't know that!" she said lifting up her head with a gleam of hope, though there was a sob in the end of her voice.
"Not until I told her, some time afterwards," said Mary Dunlap.
"You told her! She knows! And yet she could tell me to-day that she loves him! Oh! What shall I do?"
"Wait, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Mrs. Dunlap putting a detaining hand on the drooping shoulder. "Love is a strange thing. It throws illusions over the object that turn it into something entirely different. You must remember that. Don't blame Daisy too much. She explained to me at once after her first startled look, that of course he had done that to protect her reputation, since they had been delayed and all their plans upset. She said that they had expected to reach San Fergus at midnight, and that a minister friend of Mr. Keller's was to have met the train and performed the marriage ceremony. She said that Mr. Keller had telegraphed ahead for the bridal suite to be reserved for them in the San Fergus hotel."
"My Daisy told you that!"
It was years before Mrs. Dunlap forgot the tone, and the look on that mother's face when she said those words. It was as if some one had suddenly taken from her everything that was worth while in life, as if she felt that all the years of tender rearing, and care of precious love and companionship between her and her child were suddenly wiped out in one great awful act of disloyalty and broken faith with her mother. Oh, there would be a reaction by and by when the mother would excuse, and forgive, and bleed over her darling; but this first blow was like the very severing of the life bond between them, and it was terrible to witness.
Mary Dunlap felt that it was a pity that the girl had not had to suffer that look herself with full understanding of all that it meant to her wonderful little mother.
"My dear! I feel like a surgeon performing an operation, but you must know it all," said Mary Dunlap tenderly.
"Oh, yes, yes," breathed the mother sorrowfully. "If there is more, go on. It seems as if nothing mattered if Daisy, my Daisy, would go to such lengths. Actually running away to get married!"
"My dear friend, you must remember that she thinks she is very much in love, and that she feels that you have been deceived about her loved one. They were planning to send you a telegram immediately as soon as the ceremony was performed, and were counting confidently on your immediate change of feeling so soon as the inevitable step was taken. You must remember also that your daughter was greatly troubled even then, at the momentary deception.