Absorbed in her efforts to find out her mother's secret, Jewel Fielding
did not watch her twin sister as closely as she might otherwise have
done, so Flower had many opportunities of meeting her lover in secret,
while Jewel, who knew that her sister was usually docile and obedient,
did not suspect that the lovely girl was secretly transgressing her
mother's commands and meeting Laurie Meredith every night in the pretty
grounds that surrounded the house.
But a baleful chance brought her to a knowledge of the truth.
She had tried by every hint and innuendo at her command to worry her
mother's secret out of her possession, but vainly. Mrs. Fielding could
not be surprised into a betrayal of herself, and betrayed the bitterest
anger and impatience whenever Jewel referred to the subject. Indeed,
she had changed greatly toward her daughters. From loving them in the
most devoted maternal fashion she seemed at times to dislike and almost
hate them. She spent the greater part of her time alone in her room,
refusing their company, and brooding bitterly over the revelation made
to her by old Maria when on her death-bed.
So Jewel grew wrathful and impatient, and decided to resort to the
clairvoyant again for assistance in her design of turning Laurie
Meredith against her fair sister and winning him herself.
Not wishing to be seen entering the house of the fortune-teller,
who bore a very questionable character, she waited until twilight,
and slipped out by the back way, plainly dressed, and with her head
shrouded in a thick veil.
Her way lay past the cabin of the deceased Maria, the small property
having now fallen to the dissipated Sam, who was making "ducks and
drakes" of it as fast as possible, having been on a prolonged spree
ever since his old wife drew her last breath.
A dozen or more of thick and well-grown oak-trees formed a dense grove
about the little place, and Jewel caught her breath with awe as she
hurried past, dreading to see the shade of her departed nurse emerge
from the gloom.
Hark, what was that?
Her mother's voice!
It issued from among the trees near the front door. It was speaking
sharply, impatiently.
"Maria told me, Sam, that there were papers in a box in her chest to
which I was entitled, and which referred solely to me and my daughters.
You drunken rascal, you have hidden them, and pretended that they were
gone in order to extort money from me!"
Sam, who was now almost sober, was heard vehemently protesting his
innocence.
He wished he might die if there were any papers or any box in Maria's
old chest. The old creature had been in her dotage and imagined it.
Mrs. Fielding ought not to pay any attention to what the crazy old
woman had said.
"Come, Sam, name your price for the box of papers. I understand your
game, and I am ready to pay well for them. Let us close up the bargain
and be done with it. This makes three times I have come to you on the
same subject, and I am getting tired of your shilly-shallying," Mrs.
Fielding cried, sharply and angrily, while Jewel, crouching down close
to the fence, listened to every word, hoping to gain a clew to her
mother's mysterious secret.
But she was disappointed, for Mrs. Fielding was forced to go away at
last unsatisfied.
Neither bribes, persuasions nor threats could get anything out of the
stubborn widower.
It was true that Sam had the box of papers, but being exceedingly
illiterate and suspicious regarding white folks, he imagined the papers
to be deeds or something relating to the property he had inherited from
Maria, and feared that if he gave them up he might lose all, for had
not Maria become bitterly incensed at him for his trifling ways, and
declared that she would not leave him a cent when she died?
So, being unable to read the papers himself, and afraid to let any
one else see them, Sam took refuge in a lie, to which he clung with
dogged persistence, while chuckling to himself over his cleverness in
outwitting the white folk who wanted to cheat him out of his cabin and
five-acre lot.
Mrs. Fielding's rapid footsteps died away in the dim distance, and
Jewel rose from her crouching position cautiously, and leaned her arms
on the low fence, debating with herself whether she should approach
Sam or not, and make an effort to learn the strange secret which had
changed her mother so terribly.
A certain terror she had always had of the brutal, drunken scamp
restrained the ardor of her desire. She would not trust herself with
him near this lonely cabin, over which darkness was now settling, and
which was some distance from any other human habitation. She would
wait until to-morrow, and in the broad light of day try to cajole
the important papers out of his keeping, for she felt sure that they
related to her mother's secret.
She waited for Sam to go in, dreading lest he should hear her footsteps
in the road and pursue her. Then, too, she had decided to return home
instead of seeking out the clairvoyant, and she did not wish to start
back yet lest she should overtake her mother.
So she concluded to wait a few moments, and that slight delay was fatal
to the happiness of beautiful Flower.
A man's footsteps came along the road, and she held her breath in fear;
but the darkness hid her like a thick veil, and he went on toward the
grove of trees, losing himself in the dense shadow.
"Sam!" he called, cautiously, and she gave a violent start.
Laurie Meredith!
It was indeed Flower's lover, and as Sam replied to his call, he said:
"You delivered those two letters so cleverly to Miss Flower that I wish
you to take her another in the same cautious manner--to wait for a
reply, and bring it to me at once. Can you do so?"
The clink of gold in his hand made Sam reply eagerly in the
affirmative.