dark-green shrubs,
and no sound told of the deadly strife and despair. Would he see Rex
and divulge the crime she had planned? Ah! who would believe she, the
proud, petted heiress had plotted so cruelly against the life of an
innocent young girl because she found favor in the eyes of the lover
she had sworn to win? Ah! who could believe she had planned to confine
that sweet young life within the walls of a mad-house until death
should release her?

What if the plan had failed? The intention still remained the same.
She was thankful, after all, the young girl was dead.

"I could never endure the thought of Rex's intense anger if he once
imagined the truth; he would never forgive duplicity," she cried,
wildly.

The proud, beautiful girl, radiant with love and happiness a short
time since, with a great cry flung herself down among the ferns, the
sunlight gleaming on the jewels, the sumptuous morning dress, the
crushed roses, and the white, despairing face.

Any one who saw Pluma Hurlhurst when she entered the drawing-room
among her merry-hearted guests, would have said that she had never
shed a tear or known a sigh. Could that be the same creature upon
whose prostrate figure and raining tears the sunshine had so lately
fallen? No one could have told that the brightness, the smiles, and
the gay words were all forced. No one could have guessed that beneath
the brilliant manner there was a torrent of dark, angry passions and
an agony of fear.

It was pitiful to see how her eyes wandered toward the door. Hour
after hour passed, and still Rex had not returned.

The hum of girlish voices around her almost made her brain reel. Grace
Alden and Miss Raynor were singing a duet at the piano. The song they
were singing fell like a death-knell upon her ears; it was "'He Cometh
Not,' She Said."

Eve Glenn, with Birdie upon her lap, sat on an adjoining sofa flirting
desperately with the two or three devoted beaus; every one was
discussing the prospect of the coming morrow.

Her father had returned from Baltimore some time since. She was too
much engrossed with her thoughts of Rex to notice the great change in
him--the strange light in his eyes, or the wistful, expectant
expression of his face, as he kissed her more fondly than he had ever
done in his life before.

She gave appropriate answers to her guests grouped around her, but
their voices seemed afar off. Her heart and her thoughts were with
Rex. Why had he not returned