The time came when poor, unhappy Flower felt that she could hide her
condition no longer--not even from the absorbed woman who took so
little pride in her beautiful daughters now.
For months she had been going about with a heavy shawl wrapped about
her; but the pretense of chilliness could no longer avail her, for
spring was in its second month now and early flowers were in bloom.
She laid her plans tearfully to flee from home and leave some of her
things on the sea-shore, that her mother might think she had drowned
herself for love. Better that than the bitter truth.
She had a little money--the savings of the little pin-money allowed her
monthly by her mother. She put this in a little purse in her bosom,
wrapped herself in a plain dark cloak and thick veil, and started out,
one dark twilight hour, with a small hand-satchel on her arm, feeling
quite sure of escaping unmolested, as her mother was in her own room,
and Jewel had gone to the town close by to do a little shopping, as she
said.
Alas! Jewel was coming up the front steps, and a low, malicious cry
came from her lips as she sprung forward and caught Flower rudely by
the arm.
"Where are you going?" she demanded, sharply.
"To--to--walk," Flower faltered, trying to draw herself away; but Jewel
held her fast.
"It is a falsehood--you are running away!" she exclaimed, harshly.
"What does it matter if I _am_ running away?" Flower cried, growing
desperate in her despair. "No one cares for me now. Laurie has deserted
me, mamma is changed and cold, and you have grown to hate me so
bitterly that I feared to come and tell you of my trouble and beg you
to pity and help me. Let me go, Jewel, and throw myself into the sea
and end it all."
Jewel's eyes took on a baleful look in the twilight; she muttered,
hoarsely:
"If I were quite sure you would do that I'd let you go; but you
wouldn't. You were running away to seek Laurie Meredith, you know you
were!"
"I have a right to seek him if I choose!" Flower cried, roused to
defiance by her sister's inhumanity. "He is my husband, and no one
knows it better than you, Jewel, for I am quite sure that it was you
who took the certificate from my desk. Oh, sister--dear sister!" she
cried, growing suddenly wild and pathetic as she fell on her knees
before the hard-hearted girl, "you have tortured me long enough, have
you not? Even such jealous hate as yours must be satisfied by the
torments I have endured in the past eight months. Oh, give me back my
marriage-certificate! Let me give it to my mother; perhaps then she
will forgive me, and I need not go away."
It was a thrilling picture, the lovely, wretched, forsaken girl
kneeling in the gloom of the shadowy porch, her fair face upturned so
pleadingly, the tresses of shining gold falling in disorder over the
dark cloak as she looked up at that dark, proud face so transformed
by jealousy and anger that it appeared almost satanic, for no pity
lightened in the cruel, triumphant smile that parted the curved, red
lips.
"Ha! ha! so you were married--a likely story!" she hissed, scornfully.
"And the poor little bride has lost her marriage-certificate. That is
unfortunate! But, come, let us tell mamma. Perhaps she will forgive
you, anyhow."
With a wild, mocking laugh she dragged Flower to the parlor, which Mrs.
Fielding had just entered, and holding her hapless sister tightly by
the arm, exclaimed:
"Mamma, I caught Flower running away from home, and I brought her back."
Mrs. Fielding, startled out of her apathy at once, started to her feet,
crying wonderingly:
"Running away! Flower running away! But why? What reason--"
Spite of Flower's frantic struggles Jewel tore the shrouding cloak from
her sister's form.
"Reason! ha, ha! Look at her one moment and you will see her reason!"
she laughed, in bitter triumph; and Mrs. Fielding, after one wild,
searching glance, threw up her thin white hands and uttered a shriek of
horror and anger combined.
Jewel sprung quickly to her mother's side.
"Do not take it so hard, mamma," she cried, eagerly, with blazing eyes.
"Her disgrace can not touch you nor me! Oh, mamma, I have fathomed the
secret that has tortured you so long! This is the girl that was foisted
on you by your faithless husband in place of my dead twin sister! This
Flower is Daisy Forrest's daughter!"