On the day following Rex’s return home, and the morning preceding the events narrated in our last chapter, Mrs. Theodore Lyon sat in her dressing-room eagerly awaiting her son; her eyebrows met in a dark frown and her jeweled hands were locked tightly together in her lap.

“Rex is like his father,” she mused; “he will not be coerced in this matter of marriage. He is reckless and willful, yet kind of heart. For long years I have set my heart upon this marriage between Rex and Pluma Hurlhurst. I say again it must be!” Mrs. Lyon idolized her only son. “He would be a fitting mate for a queen,” she told herself. The proud, peerless beauty of the haughty young heiress of Whitestone Hall pleased her. “She and no other shall be Rex’s wife,” she said.

When Rex accepted the invitation to visit Whitestone Hall she smiled complacently.

“It can end in but one way,” she told herself; “Rex will bring Pluma home as his bride.”

Quite unknown to him, his elegant home had been undergoing repairs for months.

“There will be nothing wanting for the reception of his bride,” she said, viewing the magnificent suites of rooms which contained every luxury that taste could suggest or money procure.

Then came Rex’s letter like a thunderbolt from a clear sky begging her not to mention the subject again, as he could never marry Pluma Hurlhurst.

“I shall make a flying trip home,” he said, “then I am going abroad.”

She did not notice how white and worn her boy’s handsome face had grown when she greeted him the night before, in the flickering light of the chandelier. She would not speak to him then of the subject uppermost in her mind.

“Retire to your room at once, Rex,” she said, “your journey has wearied you. See, it is past midnight already. I will await you to-morrow morning in my boudoir; we will breakfast there together.”

She leaned back against the crimson velvet cushions, tapping her satin quilted slipper restlessly on the thick velvet carpet, ever and anon glancing at her jeweled watch, wondering what could possibly detain Rex.

She heard the sound of a quick, familiar footstep in the corridor; a moment later Rex was by her side. As she stooped down to kiss his face she noticed, in the clear morning light, how changed he was. Her jeweled hands lingered on his dark curls and touched his bright, proud face. “What had come over this handsome, impetuous son of hers?” she asked herself.

“You have been ill, Rex,” she said, anxiously, “and you have not told me.”

“I have not, indeed, mother,” he replied.

“Not ill? Why, my dear boy, your face is haggard and worn, and there are lines upon it that ought not to have been there for years. Rex,” she said, drawing him down on the sofa beside her, and holding his strong white hands tightly clasped in her own, “I do not want to tease you or bring up an unpleasant subject, but I had so hoped, my boy, you would not come alone. I have hoped and prayed, morning and night, you would bring home a bride, and that bride would be––Pluma Hurlhurst.”

Rex staggered from her arms with a groan. He meant to tell her the whole truth, but the words seemed to fail him.

“Mother,” he said, turning toward her a face white with anguish, “in Heaven’s name, never mention love or marriage to me again or I shall go mad. I shall never bring a bride here.”

“He has had a quarrel with Pluma,” she thought.

“Rex,” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders and looking down into his face, “tell me, has Pluma Hurlhurst refused you? Tell me what is the matter, Rex. I am your mother, and I have the right to know. The one dream of my life has been to see Pluma your wife; I can not give up that 94 hope. If it is a quarrel it can be easily adjusted; ‘true love never runs smooth,’ you know.”

“It is not that, mother,” said Rex, wearily bowing his head on his hands.

Then something like the truth seemed to dawn upon her.

“My son,” she said, in a slight tone of irritation, “Pluma wrote me of that little occurrence at the lawn fÊte. Surely you are not in love with that girl you were so foolishly attentive to––the overseer’s niece, I believe it was. I can not, I will not, believe a son of mine could so far forget his pride as to indulge in such mad, reckless folly. Remember, Rexford,” she cried, in a voice fairly trembling with suppressed rage, “I could never forgive such an act of recklessness. She should never come here, I warn you.”

“Mother,” said Rex, raising his head proudly, and meeting the flashing scorn of her eyes unflinchingly, “you must not speak so; I––can not listen to it.”

“By what right do you forbid me to speak of that girl as I choose?” she demanded, in a voice hard and cold with intense passion.

Once or twice Rex paced the length of the room, his arms folded upon his breast. Suddenly he stopped before her.

“What is this girl to you?” she asked.

With white, quivering lips Rex answered back:

“She is my wife!”

The words were spoken almost in a whisper, but they echoed like thunder through the room, and seemed to repeat themselves, over and over again, during the moment of utter silence that ensued. Rex had told his pitiful secret, and felt better already, as if the worst was over; while his mother stood motionless and dumb, glaring upon him with a baleful light in her eyes. He had dashed down in a single instant the hopes she had built up for long years.

“Let me tell you about it, mother,” he said, kneeling at her feet. “The worst and bitterest part is yet to come.”

“Yes, tell me,” his mother said, hoarsely.

Without lifting up his bowed head, or raising his voice, which was strangely sad and low, Rex told his story––every word of it: how his heart had went out to the sweet-faced, golden-haired little creature whom he found fast asleep under the blossoming magnolia-tree in the morning sunshine; how he protected the shrinking, timid little creature from the cruel insults of Pluma Hurlhurst; how he persuaded her to marry him out in the starlight, and how they had agreed to meet on the morrow––that morrow on which he found the cottage 95 empty and his child-bride gone; of his search for her, and––oh, cruelest and bitterest of all!––where and with whom he found her; how he had left her lying among the clover, loving her too madly to curse her, yet praying Heaven to strike him dead then and there. Daisy––sweet little, blue-eyed Daisy was false; he never cared to look upon a woman’s face again. He spoke of Daisy as his wife over and over again, the name lingering tenderly on his lips. He did not see how, at the mention of the words, “My wife,” his mother’s face grew more stern and rigid, and she clutched her hands so tightly together that the rings she wore bruised her tender flesh, yet she did not seem to feel the pain.

She saw the terrible glance that leaped into his eyes when he mentioned Stanwick’s name, and how he ground his teeth, like one silently breathing a terrible curse. Then his voice fell to a whisper.

“I soon repented of my harshness,” he said, “and I went back to Elmwood; but, oh, the pity of it––the pity of it––I was too late; little Daisy, my bride, was dead! She had thrown herself down a shaft in a delirium. I would have followed her, but they held me back. I can scarcely realize it, mother,” he cried. “The great wonder is that I do not go insane.”

Mrs. Lyon had heard but one word––“Dead.” This girl who had inveigled her handsome son into a low marriage was dead. Rex was free––free to marry the bride whom she had selected for him. Yet she dare not mention that thought to him now––no, not now; she must wait a little.

No pity lurked in her heart for the poor little girl-bride whom she supposed lying cold and still in death, whom her son so wildly mourned; she only realized her darling Rex was free. What mattered it to her at what bitter a cost Rex was free? She should yet see her darling hopes realized. Pluma should be his wife, just as sure as they both lived.

“I have told you all now, mother,” Rex said, in conclusion; “you must comfort me, for Heaven knows I need all of your sympathy. You will forgive me, mother,” he said. “You would have loved Daisy, too, if you had seen her; I shall always believe, through some enormous villainy, Stanwick must have tempted her. I shall follow him to the ends of the earth. I shall wring the truth from his lips. I must go away,” he cried––“anywhere, everywhere, trying to forget my great sorrow. How am I to bear it? Has Heaven no pity, that I am so sorely tried?”

At that moment little Birdie came hobbling into the room, 96 and for a brief moment Rex forgot his great grief in greeting his little sister.

“Oh, you darling brother Rex,” she cried, clinging to him and laughing and crying in one breath, “I told them to wake me up sure, if you came in the night. I dreamed I heard your voice. You see, it must have been real, but I couldn’t wake up; and this morning I heard every one saying: ‘Rex is here, Rex is here,’ and I couldn’t wait another moment, but I came straight down to you.”

Rex kissed the pretty little dimpled face, and the little chubby hands that stroked his hair so tenderly.

“Why, you have been crying, Rex,” she cried out, in childish wonder. “See, there are tear-drops on your eyelashes––one fell on my hand. What is the matter, brother dear, are you not happy?”

Birdie put her two little soft white arms around his neck, laying her cheek close to his in her pretty, childish, caressing way.

He tried to laugh lightly, but the laugh had no mirth in it.

“You must run away and play, Birdie, and not annoy your brother,” said Mrs. Lyon, disengaging the child’s clinging arms from Rex’s neck. “That child is growing altogether too observing of late.”

“Child!” cried Birdie. “I am ten years old. I shall soon be a young lady like Bess and Gertie, over at Glengrove.”

“And Eve,” suggested Rex, the shadow of a smile flickering around his mouth.

“No, not like Eve,” cried the child, gathering up her crutch and sun-hat as she limped toward the door; “Eve is not a young lady, she’s a Tom-boy; she wears short dresses and chases the hounds around, while the other two wear silk dresses with big, big trains and have beaus to hold their fans and handkerchiefs. I am going to take my new books you sent me down to my old seat on the stone wall and read those pretty stories there. I don’t know if I will be back for lunch or not,” she called back; “if I don’t, will you come for me, Brother Rex?”

“Yes, dear,” he made answer, “of course I will.”

The lunch hour came and went, still Birdie did not put in an appearance. At last Rex was beginning to feel uneasy about her.

“You need not be the least alarmed,” said Mrs. Lyon, laughingly, “the child is quite spoiled; she is like a romping gypsy, more content to live out of doors in a tent than to remain indoors. She is probably waiting down on the stone 97 wall for you to come for her and carry her home as you used to do. You had better go down and see, Rex; it is growing quite dark.”

And Rex, all unconscious of the strange, invisible thread which fate was weaving so closely about him, quickly made his way through the fast-gathering darkness down the old familiar path which led through the odorous orange groves to the old stone wall, guided by the shrill treble of Birdie’s childish voice, which he heard in the distance, mingled with the plaintive murmur of the sad sea-waves––those waves that seemed ever murmuring in their song the name of Daisy. Even the subtle breeze seemed to whisper of her presence.