Jewel's beautiful dark face dilated with anger as she muttered to herself:

"The obstinate little vixen, how I hate her! I do not know why I do not tell mamma everything. It is only because I am afraid she would not be severe enough upon her. I will wait, wait, until I get more to go upon. That wretched Sam, where can he have gone, and why does he not return?"

For Sam had locked up the cabin on the morning after Laurie Meredith disappeared, and had gone away, no one knew where.

Perhaps he had gone to get rid of the importunities of Mrs. Fielding, fearing lest in some weak moment she might cajole him out of the papers she desired so much.

However that may be, he had disappeared as entirely as if mother earth had opened and swallowed him, and both Mrs. Fielding and Jewel chafed bitterly over this misfortune.

Mrs. Fielding had gone to Sam's house several times in the dead of night and made eager search for the papers, but without success. But the known fact that Sam was gone away, connected with the fact that lights had been seen flaring through the cabin windows at night, speedily gave room to gossips about the neighborhood to declare that old Maria's ghost haunted the place.

When the report came to the ears of Mrs. Fielding she smiled bitterly, and Jewel, who had been watching her mother's face, immediately leaped to a conclusion. She thought:

"She has been there searching for those papers at night."

And she immediately determined that she would do the same thing, for she felt convinced that her mother had failed. Else why did she grow older and stranger with such awful rapidity that her daughters shuddered sometimes, fearing from her fits of rage alternating with fearful moodiness that she was going mad.

Poor Flower, in spite of her own sorrows, felt an added pang when she heard that the ghost of her old black nurse was walking about her old home. She shed some bitter tears, and ventured to express a timid fear lest Maria had had something on her mind before she died which made her spirit restless now.

Mrs. Fielding scowled furiously and snarled angrily.

"Maria was a wicked old woman! She had done enough evil to send her soul to torment, and I hope she is suffering there!"

Her flashing eyes and vindictive words almost frightened her daughters, and Flower hurriedly retired to her own room to weep bitterly over those unkind words spoken of her dear old nurse.

Poor Flower, she was almost always weeping now! A terrible trouble had come to her which she feared the keen, cruel eyes of Jewel already suspected, although Mrs. Fielding, absorbed in her bitter, secret musings, and spending much of her time alone, noticed nothing.

The summer days were long since gone, and nearly six months had passed since Laurie Meredith had to all appearance deserted the trusting young girl whom he had secretly made his wife.

To her grief and terror she had found out months ago that a little child was coming to her, and she knew not where to fly to hide the shame and disgrace hanging over her golden head.

Oh, how she repented her folly and disobedience now, for she believed that Laurie was false to her, and that he had deliberately abandoned her after amusing himself with her all the golden summer days!

She would rather have died than confess the truth to her proud mother, now that the marriage-certificate was lost, for she feared that her story would not be believed, having an intuitive knowledge that Jewel would, through the weight of her influence, be against her—Jewel, who had taken no pains to conceal the fact that she had hated her blue-eyed sister ever since that rivalry for Laurie Meredith's love, in which Flower had been the winner.

So, as the cold days of winter deepened and darkened, and the winds blew chill and cold across the stormy sea, Flower began to stay in her room more and more, with her pale face glued against the window-pane, thinking, thinking, until she grew almost as wild-eyed as her mother, and wondering how much longer it would be before she would be compelled to fly to hide her disgrace.