Rex had hoped against hope.
"Daisy!" he cried, holding out his arms to her with a yearning,
passionate cry. "My God! tell me it is false--you are _not_ here with
Stanwick--or I shall go mad! Daisy, my dear little sweetheart, my
little love, why don't you speak?" he cried, clasping her close to his
heart and covering her face and hair and hands with passionate,
rapturous kisses.
Daisy struggled out of his embrace, with a low, broken sob, flinging
herself on her knees at his feet with a sharp cry.
"Daisy," said the old lady, bending over her and smoothing back the
golden hair from the lovely anguished face, "tell him the truth, dear.
You are here with Mr. Stanwick; is it not so?"
The sudden weight of sorrow that had fallen upon poor, hapless Daisy
seemed to paralyze her very senses. The sunshine seemed blotted out,
and the light of heaven to grow dark around her.
"Yes," she cried, despairingly; and it almost seemed to Daisy another
voice had spoken with her lips.
"This Mr. Stanwick claims to be your husband?" asked the old lady,
solemnly.
"Yes," she cried out again, in agony, "but, Rex, I--I--"
The words died away on her white lips, and the sound died away in her
throat. She saw him recoil from her with a look of white, frozen
horror on his face which gave place to stern, bitter wrath. Slowly and
sadly he put her clinging arms away from him, folding his arms across
his breast with that terrible look upon his face such as a hero's face
wears when he has heard, unflinchingly, his death sentence--the calm
of terrible despair.
"Daisy," he said, proudly, "I have trusted you blindly, for I loved
you madly, passionately. I would as soon believe the fair smiling
heavens that bend above us false as you whom I loved so madly and so
well. I was mad to bind you with such cruel, irksome bonds when your
heart was not mine but another's. My dream of love is shattered now.
You have broken my heart and ruined and blighted my life. God forgive
you, Daisy, for I never can! I give you back your freedom; I release
you from your vows; I can not curse you--I have loved you too well for
that; I cast you from my heart as I cast you from my life; farewell,
Daisy--farewell forever!"
She tried to speak, but her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth.
Oh, pitying Heaven, if she could only have cried out to you and the
angels to bear witness and proclaim her innocence! The strength to
move hand or foot seemed suddenly to have left her. She tried hard,
oh! so hard, to speak, but no sound issued from her white lips. She
felt as one in a horrible trance, fearfully, terribly conscious of all
that transpired around her, yet denied the power to move even a muscle
to defend herself.
"Have you anything to say to me, Daisy?" he asked, mournfully, turning
from her to depart.
The woful, terrified gaze of the blue eyes deepened pitifully, but she
spoke no word, and Rex turned from her--turned from the girl-bride
whom he loved so madly, with a bursting, broken heart, more bitter to
bear than death itself--left her alone with the pitying sunlight
falling upon her golden hair, and her white face turned up to heaven,
silently praying to God that she might die then and there.
Oh, Father above, pity her! She had no mother's gentle voice to guide
her, no father's strong breast to weep upon, no sister's soothing
presence. She was so young and so pitifully lonely, and Rex had
drifted out of her life forever, believing her--oh, bitterest of
thoughts!--believing her false and sinful.
Poor little Daisy was ignorant of the ways of the world; but a dim
realization of the full import of the terrible accusation brought
against her forced its way to her troubled brain.
She only realized--Rex--her darling Rex, had gone out of her life
forever.
Daisy flung herself face downward in the long, cool, waving green
grass where Rex had left her.
"Daisy," called Miss Burton, softly, "it is all over; come into the
house, my dear."
But she turned from her with a shuddering gasp.
"In the name of pity, leave me to myself," she sobbed; "it is the
greatest kindness you can do me."
And the poor old lady who had wrought so much sorrow unwittingly in
those two severed lives, walked slowly back to the cottage, with tears
in her eyes, strongly impressed there must be some dark mystery in the
young girl's life who was sobbing her heart out in the green grass
yonder; and she did just what almost any other person would have done
under the same circumstances--sent immediately for Lester Stanwick.
He answered the summons at once, listening with intense interest while
the aged spinster briefly related all that had transpired; but through
oversight or excitement she quite forgot to mention Rex had called
Daisy his wife.
"Curse him!" he muttered, under his breath, "I--I believe the girl
actually cares for him."
Then he went out to Daisy, lying so still and lifeless among the pink
clover and waving grass.
Poor Daisy! Poor, desperate, lonely, struggling child! All this cruel
load of sorrow, crushing her girlish heart, and blighting her young
life, and she so innocent, so entirely blameless, yet such a plaything
of fate.
"Daisy," he said, bending over her and lifting the slight form in his
arms, "they tell me some one has been troubling you. Who has dared
annoy you? Trust in me, Daisy. What is the matter?"
Lester Stanwick never forgot the white, pitiful face that was raised
to his.
"I want to die," she sobbed. "Oh, why did you not leave me to die in
the dark water? it was so cruel of you to save me."
"Do you want to know why I risked my life to save you, Daisy? Does not
my every word and glance tell you why?" The bold glance in his eyes
spoke volumes. "Have you not guessed that I love you, Daisy?"
"Oh, please do not talk to me in that way, Mr. Stanwick," she cried,
starting to her feet in wild alarm. "Indeed you must not," she
stammered.
"Why not?" he demanded, a merciless smile stirring beneath his heavy
mustache. "I consider that you belong to me. I mean to make you my
wife in very truth."
Daisy threw up her hands in a gesture of terror heart-breaking to see,
shrinking away from him in quivering horror, her sweet face ashen
pale.
"Oh, go away, go away!" she cried out. "I am growing afraid of you. I
could never marry you, and I would not if I could. I shall always be
grateful to you for what you have done for me, but, oh, go away, and
leave me now, for my trouble is greater than I can bear!"
"You would not if you could," he repeated, coolly, smiling so
strangely her blood seemed to change to ice in her veins. "I thank you
sincerely for your appreciation of me. I did not dream, however, your
aversion to me was so deeply rooted. That makes little difference,
however. I shall make you my wife this very day all the same;
business, urgent business, calls me away from Elmwood to-day. I shall
take you with me as my wife."
She heard the cruel words like one in a dream.
"Rex! Rex!" she sobbed, under her breath. Suddenly she remembered Rex
had left her--she was never to look upon his face again. He had left
her to the cold mercies of a cruel world. Poor little Daisy--the
unhappy, heart-broken girl-bride--sat there wondering what else could
happen to her. "God has shut me out from His mercy," she cried; "there
is nothing for me to do but to die."
"I am a desperate man, Daisy," pursued Stanwick, slowly. "My will is
my law. The treatment you receive at my hands depends entirely upon
yourself--you will not dare defy me!" His eyes fairly glowed with a
strange fire that appalled her as she met his passionate glance.
Then Daisy lifted up her golden head with the first defiance she had
ever shown, the deathly pallor deepening on her fair, sweet,
flower-like face, and the look of a hunted deer at bay in the
beautiful velvety agonized eyes, as she answered:
"I refuse to marry you, Mr. Stanwick. Please go away and leave me in
peace."
He laughed mockingly.
"I shall leave you for the present, my little sweetheart," he said,
"but I shall return in exactly fifteen minutes. Hold yourself in
readiness to receive me then; I shall not come alone, but bring with
me a minister, who will be prepared to marry us. I warn you not to
attempt to run away," he said, interpreting aright the startled glance
she cast about her. "In yonder lane stands a trusty sentinel to see
that you do not leave this house. You have been guarded thus since you
entered this house; knowing your proclivity to escape impending
difficulties, I have prepared accordingly. You can not escape your
fate, my little wild flower!"
"No minister would marry an unwilling bride--he could not. I would
fling myself at his feet and tell him all, crying out I was--I was--"
"You will do nothing of the kind," he interrupted, a hard, resolute
look settling on his face. "I would have preferred winning you by fair
means, if possible; if you make it impossible I shall be forced to a
desperate measure. I had not intended adopting such stringent
measures, except in an extreme case. Permit me to explain what I shall
do to prevent you from making the slightest outcry." As he spoke he
drew from his pocket a small revolver heavily inlaid with pearl and
silver. "I shall simply hold this toy to your pretty forehead to
prevent a scene. The minister will be none the wiser--he is blind? Do
you think," he continued, slowly, "that I am the man to give up a
thing I have set my heart upon for a childish whim?"
"Believe me," cried Daisy, earnestly, "it is no childish whim. Oh, Mr.
Stanwick, I want to be grateful to you--why will you torture me until
I hate you?"
"I will marry you this very day, Daisy Brooks, whether you hate me or
love me. I have done my best to gain your love. It will come in time;
I can wait for it."
"You will never make me love you," cried Daisy, covering her face with
her hands; "do not hope it--and the more you talk to me the less I
like you. I wish you would go away."
"I shall not despair," said Stanwick, with a confident smile. "I like
things which I find it hard to obtain--that was always one of my
characteristics--and I never liked you so well as I like you now, in
your defiant anger, and feel more determined than ever to make you my
own."
Suddenly a new thought occurred to him as he was about to turn from
her.
"Why, how stupid of me!" he cried. "I could not bring the parson here,
for they think you my wife already. I must change my plan materially
by taking you to the parsonage. We can go from here directly to the
station. I shall return in exactly fifteen minutes with a conveyance.
Remember, I warn you to make no outcry for protection in the meantime.
If you do I shall say you inherited your mother's malady. I am well
acquainted with your history, you see." He kissed his finger-tips to
her carelessly. "_Au revoir_, my love, but not farewell," he said,
lightly, "until we meet to be parted nevermore," and, with a quick,
springy step Lester Stanwick walked rapidly down the clover-bordered
path on his fatal errand.
In the distance the little babbling brook sung to her of peace and
rest beneath its curling, limpid waters.
"Oh, mother, mother," she cried, "what was the dark sorrow that
tortured your poor brain, till it drove you mad--ay, mad--ending in
death and despair? Why did you leave your little Daisy here to suffer
so? I feel such a throbbing in my own poor brain--but I must fly
anywhere, anywhere, to escape this new sorrow. God has forgotten me."
She took one step forward in a blind, groping, uncertain way. "My last
ray of hope has died out," she cried as the memory of his cruel words
came slowly back to her, so mockingly uttered--"the minister would be
none the wiser--he is blind."