We must now return to Daisy, whom we left standing in the heart of the forest, the moonlight streaming on her upturned face, upon which the startled horseman gazed.

He had not waited for her to reply, but, touching his horse hastily with his riding-whip, he sped onward with the speed of the wind.

In that one instant Daisy had recognized the dark, sinister, handsome face of Lester Stanwick.

“They have searched the pit and found I was not there. He is searching for me; he has tracked me down!” she cried, vehemently, pressing her little white hands to her burning head.

Faster, faster flew the little feet through the long dew-damp grasses.

“My troubles seem closing more darkly around me,” she sobbed. “I wish I had never been born, then I could never have spoiled Rex’s life. But I am leaving you, my love, my darling, so you can marry Pluma, the heiress. You will forget me and be happy.”

Poor little, neglected, unloved bride, so fair, so young, so fragile, out alone facing the dark terrors of the night, fleeing from the young husband who was wearing his life out in grief for her. Ah, if the gentle winds sighing above her, or the solemn, nodding trees had only told her, how different her life might have been!

“No one has ever loved me but poor old Uncle John!” She bent her fair young head and cried out to Heaven: “Why has no mercy been shown to me? I have never done one wrong, yet I am so sorely tried. Oh, mother, mother!” she cried, raising her blue eyes up to the starry sky, “if you could have foreseen the dark, cruel shadows that would have folded their pitiless wings over the head of your child, would you not have taken me with you down into the depths of the seething waters?” She raised up her white hands pleadingly as though she would fain pierce with her wrongs the blue skies, and reach the great White Throne. “I must be going mad,” she said. “Why did Rex seek me out?” she cried, in anguish. “Why did Heaven let me love him so madly, and my whole life be darkened by living apart from him if I am to live? I had no thought of suffering and sorrow when I met him that summer morning. Are the summer days to pass and never bring him? Are the flowers to bloom, the sun to shine, the years to come and go, yet never bring him once to me? I can not bear it––I do not know how to live!”

If she could only see poor old, faithful John Brooks again she would kneel at his feet just as she had done when she was a little child, lay her weary head down on his toil-hardened hand, tell him how she had suffered, and ask him how she could die and end it all.

She longed so hungrily for some one to caress her, murmuring tender words over her. She could almost hear his voice 164 saying as she told him her pitiful story: “Come to my arms, pet, my poor little trampled Daisy! You shall never want for some one to love you while poor old Uncle John lives. Bless your dear little heart!”

The longing was strongly upon her. No one would recognize her––she must go and see poor old John. She never thought what would become of her life after that.

At the station she asked for a ticket for Allendale. No one seemed to know of such a place. After a prolonged search on the map the agent discovered it to be a little inland station not far from Baltimore.

“We can sell you a ticket for Baltimore,” he said, “and there you can purchase a ticket for the other road.”

And once again poor little Daisy was whirling rapidly toward the scene of her first great sorrow.

Time seemed to slip by her unheeded during all that long, tedious journey of two nights and a day.

“Are you going to Baltimore?” asked a gentle-faced lady, who was strangely attracted to the beautiful, sorrowful young girl, in which all hope, life, and sunshine seemed dead.

“Yes, madame,” she made answer, “I change cars there; I am going further.”

The lady was struck by the peculiar mournful cadence of the young voice.

“I beg your pardon for my seeming rudeness,” she said, looking long and earnestly at the fair young face; “but you remind me so strangely of a young school-mate of my youth; you are strangely like what she was then. We both attended Madame Whitney’s seminary. Perhaps you have heard of the institution; it is a very old and justly famous school.” She wondered at the beautiful flush that stole into the girl’s flower-like face––like the soft, faint tinting of a sea-shell. “She married a wealthy planter,” pursued the lady, reflectively; “but she did not live long to enjoy her happy home. One short year after she married Evalia Hurlhurst died.” The lady never forgot the strange glance that passed over the girl’s face, or the wonderful light that seemed to break over it. “Why,” exclaimed the lady, as if a sudden thought occurred to her, “when you bought your ticket I heard you mention Allendale. That was the home of the Hurlhursts. Is it possible you know them? Mr. Hurlhurst is a widower––something of a recluse, and an invalid, I have heard; he has a daughter called Pluma.”

“Yes, madame,” Daisy made answer, “I have met Miss Hurlhurst, but not her father.”

How bitterly this stranger’s words seemed to mock her! Did she know Pluma Hurlhurst, the proud, haughty heiress who had stolen her young husband’s love from her?––the dark, sparkling, willful beauty who had crossed her innocent young life so strangely––whom she had seen bending over her husband in the pitying moonlight almost caressing him? She thought she would cry out with the bitterness of the thought. How strange it was! The name, Evalia Hurlhurst, seemed to fall upon her ears like the softest, sweetest music. Perhaps she wished she was like that young wife, who had died so long ago, resting quietly beneath the white daisies that bore her name.

“That is Madame Whitney’s,” exclaimed the lady, leaning forward toward the window excitedly. “Dear me! I can almost imagine I am a young girl again. Why, what is the matter, my dear? You look as though you were about to faint.”

The train whirled swiftly past––the broad, glittering Chesapeake on one side, and the closely shaven lawn of the seminary on the other. It was evidently recess. Young girls were flitting here and there under the trees, as pretty a picture of happy school life as one would wish to see. It seemed to poor hapless Daisy long ages must have passed since that morning poor old John Brooks had brought her, a shy, blushing, shrinking country lassie, among those daintily attired, aristocratic maidens, who had laughed at her coy, timid mannerism, and at the clothes poor John wore, and at his flaming red cotton neckerchief.

She had not much time for further contemplation. The train steamed into the Baltimore depot, and she felt herself carried along by the surging crowd that alighted from the train.

She did not go into the waiting-room; she had quite forgotten she was not at the end of her journey.

She followed the crowds along the bustling street, a solitary, desolate, heart-broken girl, with a weary white face whose beautiful, tender eyes looked in vain among the throngs that passed her by for one kindly face or a sympathetic look.

Some pushed rudely by her, others looked into the beautiful face with an ugly smile. Handsomely got-up dandies, with fine clothes and no brains, nodded familiarly as Daisy passed them. Some laughed, and others scoffed and jeered; but not one––dear Heaven! not one among the vast throng gave her a kindly glance or a word. Occasionally one, warmer hearted 166 than the others, would look sadly on that desolate, beautiful, childish face.

A low moan she could scarcely repress broke from her lips. A handsomely dressed child, who was rolling a hoop in front of her, turned around suddenly and asked her if she was ill.

“Ill?” She repeated the word with a vague feeling of wonder. What was physical pain to the torture that was eating away her young life? Ill? Why, all the illness in the world put together could not cause the anguish she was suffering then––the sting of a broken heart.

She was not ill––only desolate and forsaken.

Poor Daisy answered in such a vague manner that she quite frightened the child, who hurried away as fast as she could with her hoop, pausing now and then to look back at the white, forlorn face on which the sunshine seemed to cast such strange shadows.

On and on Daisy walked, little heeding which way she went. She saw what appeared to be a park on ahead, and there she bent her steps. The shady seats among the cool green grasses under the leafy trees looked inviting. She opened the gate and entered. A sudden sense of dizziness stole over her, and her breath seemed to come in quick, convulsive gasps.

“Perhaps God has heard my prayer, Rex, my love,” she sighed. “I am sick and weary unto death. Oh, Rex––Rex––”

The beautiful eyelids fluttered over the soft, blue eyes, and with that dearly loved name on her lips, the poor little child-bride sunk down on the cold, hard earth in a death-like swoon.

“Oh, dear me, Harvey, who in the world is this?” cried a little, pleasant-voiced old lady, who had witnessed the young girl enter the gate, and saw her stagger and fall. In a moment she had fluttered down the path, and was kneeling by Daisy’s side.

“Come here, Harvey,” she called; “it is a young girl; she has fainted.”

Mr. Harvey Tudor, the celebrated detective, threw away the cigar he had been smoking, and hastened to his wife’s side.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” cried the little lady, in ecstasy. “I wonder who she is, and what she wanted.”

“She is evidently a stranger, and called to consult me professionally,” responded Mr. Tudor; “she must be brought into the house.”

He lifted the slight, delicate figure in his arms, and bore her into the house.

“I am going down to the office now, my dear,” he said; 167 “we have some important cases to look after this morning. I will take a run up in the course of an hour or so. If the young girl should recover and wish to see me very particularly, I suppose you will have to send for me. Don’t get me away up here unless you find out the case is imperative.”

And with a good-humored nod, the shrewd detective, so quiet and domesticated at his own fireside, walked quickly down the path to the gate, whistling softly to himself––thinking with a strange, puzzled expression in his keen blue eyes, of Daisy. Through all of his business transactions that morning the beautiful, childish face was strangely before his mind’s eye.

“Confound it!” he muttered, seizing his hat, “I must hurry home and find out at once who that pretty little creature is––and what she wants.”