if by rail or by water I can
easily recapture my pretty bird. Ah, Daisy Brooks!" he muttered, "you
can not fly away from your fate; it will overtake you sooner or
later."

Some hours after Stanwick had left the cottage, an old man toiled
wearily up the grass-grown path.

"Oh, poor little Daisy," he said, wiping the tears from his eyes with
his old red and white cotton kerchief; "no matter what you have done
I will take you back to my heart--that I will!"

He clutched the letter Mme. Whitney had written him close in his
toil-hardened hand. The letter simply told him Daisy had fled from the
seminary, and she had every reason to believe she was now in Elmwood.
He had received the letter while in New York, and hastily proceeded to
Elmwood, the station indicated, at once, without stopping over at
Allendale to acquaint Septima with the news.

"She shall never be sent off to school again," he commented; "but she
shall stop at home. Poor little pet, she was always as happy as the
day was long; she sha'n't have book-learning if she don't want it. I
am too hard, I s'pose, with the child in sending her off among these
primpy city gals, with their flounces and furbelows, with only three
plain muslin frocks. The dickens fly away with the book-learnin'; I
like her all the better just as she is, bless her dear little heart!
I'm after little Daisy Brooks," he said, bowing to the ladies who met
him at the door. "I heard she was here--run away from school, you see,
ma'am--but I'll forgive the little gypsy. Tell her old Uncle John is
here. She'll be powerful glad to see me."

Slowly and gently they broke to him the cruel story. How the dark,
handsome stranger had brought her there in the storm and the night;
and they could not refuse her shelter; the gentleman claimed her to be
his wife; of her illness which culminated in her disappearance.

They never forgot the white, set face turned toward them. The veins
stood out like cords on his forehead, and the perspiration rolled down
his pallid cheeks in great quivering beads. This heart-rending, silent
emotion was more terrible to witness than the most violent paroxysms
of grief. Strangely enough they had quite forgotten to mention Rex's
visit.

"You don't know how I loved that child," he cried, brokenly. "She was
all I had to love in the whole world, and I set such store by her, but
Stanwick shall pay dearly for this," he cried, hoarsely. "I shall
never rest day or night until my li