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.