shed down in a single
instant the hopes she had built up for long years.

"Let me tell you about it, mother," he said, kneeling at her feet.
"The worst and bitterest part is yet to come."

"Yes, tell me," his mother said, hoarsely.

Without lifting up his bowed head, or raising his voice, which was
strangely sad and low, Rex told his story--every word of it: how his
heart had went out to the sweet-faced, golden-haired little creature
whom he found fast asleep under the blossoming magnolia-tree in the
morning sunshine; how he protected the shrinking, timid little
creature from the cruel insults of Pluma Hurlhurst; how he persuaded
her to marry him out in the starlight, and how they had agreed to meet
on the morrow--that morrow on which he found the cottage empty and
his child-bride gone; of his search for her, and--oh, cruelest and
bitterest of all!--where and with whom he found her; how he had left
her lying among the clover, loving her too madly to curse her, yet
praying Heaven to strike him dead then and there. Daisy--sweet little,
blue-eyed Daisy was false; he never cared to look upon a woman's face
again. He spoke of Daisy as his wife over and over again, the name
lingering tenderly on his lips. He did not see how, at the mention of
the words, "My wife," his mother's face grew more stern and rigid, and
she clutched her hands so tightly together that the rings she wore
bruised her tender flesh, yet she did not seem to feel the pain.

She saw the terrible glance that leaped into his eyes when he
mentioned Stanwick's name, and how he ground his teeth, like one
silently breathing a terrible curse. Then his voice fell to a
whisper.

"I soon repented of my harshness," he said, "and I went back to
Elmwood; but, oh, the pity of it--the pity of it--I was too late;
little Daisy, my bride, was dead! She had thrown herself down a shaft
in a delirium. I would have followed her, but they held me back. I can
scarcely realize it, mother," he cried. "The great wonder is that I do
not go insane."

Mrs. Lyon had heard but one word--"Dead." This girl who had inveigled
her handsome son into a low marriage was dead. Rex was free--free to
marry the bride whom she had selected for him. Yet she dare not
mention that thought to him now--no, not now; she must wait a little.

No pity lurked in her heart for the poor little girl-bride whom she
supposed lying cold and still in death, whom her son so wildly
mourned; she only realized her