FAITHFUL.
Mrs. Fleming, pale with secret wrath and chagrin, sent a venomous look
after the retreating forms of Dallas and Daisie, then set herself the
task of making everything right with her guests.
“It was all my fault. I am too fond of a joke,” she said plaintively.
“But, as they were already engaged, I thought they would be rather
pleased than otherwise. But Daisie chose to be offish about it, and I’m
sorry now that I did it, of course.”
“Oh, I shall persuade her to forgive you to-morrow,” Royall said, with
pretended carelessness; adding: “Good friends, do not let this awkward
little _contretemps_ spoil your pleasure.”
No one hinted, no one guessed, that the bride’s heart belonged to
another man. No one took the affair _au serieux_, thinking it would all
come right to-morrow when Daisie had had her little pouting spell.
So the gayeties of the evening went on, and Dallas and Daisie, both so
sorely stricken down from joy to woe, wended their way to her little
cottage home, sad at heart and indignant over the cheat that had been
practiced on her confidence, yet both believing that the unwelcome
fetters might soon be broken.
Both felt quite certain that Royall Sherwood had been in the plot
to deceive her, and Daisie’s pity for him had changed to hate and
indignation.
“I would die now before I would become his wife in reality!” she vowed,
in passionate resentment; and Dallas pressed her little hand tenderly,
feeling that the joy of his life would be blotted out were he to lose
his darling.
But he did not mean to lose her--not he; and he resolved to visit a
noted lawyer to-morrow, and place the case in his hands, so that Daisie
might be freed as soon as possible.
“Then, darling one, our wedding shall follow soon, and in our happiness
we will soon forget this brief shadow,” he said fondly, as he stood on
the steps looking up at her just as he had seen her first beneath the
drooping wistarias--the picture that stayed in his heart till he died.
Suddenly Aunt Alice came to the door in her surliest mood.
“What has brought you home to-night, Daisie? I thought you meant to
stay several days?” she exclaimed, glowering at the girl’s companion.
“I will tell you all presently, Aunt Alice,” the girl said, over her
shoulder, then gave him her hand.
“Good night, Dallas. I shall expect you to-morrow,” she said; and,
in spite of the old woman’s angry looks, he kissed the little hand,
and his dark eyes beamed on her in the moonlight with the love that
thrilled his heart.
She stood and watched him out of sight--her handsome lover--then went
into the house with her aunt, and poured out the story of all that had
happened at Sea View.
The old woman was simply overjoyed, and did not hesitate to say so.
“So you are Mrs. Royall Sherwood--a rich man’s bride! I congratulate
you, Daisie!” she exclaimed eagerly.
“But I tell you I hate him, aunt, and I will get the law to free me!”
“You will not be so foolish, Daisie Bell. You, a poor school-teacher,
an orphan girl forced to earn her living in that wretched city where
the lives of so many young girls are worn out in the struggle for
bread! Oh, Daisie, do not be so foolish as to throw away this splendid
chance! And you so beautiful, my dear--so fitted to take your place in
the finest society!”
“Auntie, you forget that I have another lover--handsomer, nobler than
Royall Sherwood. As soon as I am free I shall marry him.”
“Never, never, with my consent! I have heard all about him from Mr.
Sherwood, and he is no match for you. No one knows aught about him. He
is poor, of course, and some dreadful disgrace may possibly be attached
to him. You must give him up now, and my advice to you is to make up
your quarrel with Royall, and be thankful to get him.”
“Ah, how cruel it is to have not a friend on earth! To get such advice
from you, who ought to fill the place of my poor, dead mother!” sobbed
Daisie, heartbrokenly; but the old woman, who could be very hard and
coarse when she chose, retorted sharply:
“Your poor mother would be alive now if she hadn’t married a poor man,
and broken her heart because her parents disinherited her and refused
ever to see her again. She was as pretty as you, and had her pick of
lovers; but she fell in love with that poor artist, Vivian Bell, my
husband’s brother. And what came of it? You know their struggles, for
they died one after another only two years ago in New York, and left
you, their only child, to fight the battle of life alone. So how you
can throw away this splendid chance fairly beats my time.”
“But I am used to poverty, Aunt Alice, so it does not daunt me. And
I am sorry you have arrayed yourself in the ranks of my persecutors,
for it makes me feel so friendless. True, you are not really my
aunt; but, as Uncle John’s wife, I have loved you just the same, and
now”--sobbingly--“you have turned against me, and I must go away alone
and unpitied, unless by my true little friend Annette.”
She dragged herself wearily upstairs, and, throwing off, with a shudder
of disgust, her white gown, donned a loose robe, and sat down beside
the window to keep a vigil that was sad and strange for a new-made
bride.
How long she sat there she never knew, so confused were her thoughts;
but it could not have been more than an hour, when she heard carriage
wheels grating on the stillness of the street, then pausing before the
house, and a man sprang out and came into the porch, ringing a furious
peal on the doorbell.
Daisie put her head out of the window, exclaiming nervously:
“What is wanted?”
At the same moment she recognized the young minister, and heard him say:
“Your husband is dying--they have sent for you to come!”