seemed to stir the branches of the trees, and the
inky blackness of the sky presaged the coming storm.

Since dusk the coppery haze seemed to gather itself together; great
purple masses of clouds piled themselves in the sky; a lurid light
overspread the heavens, and now and then the dense, oppressive silence
was broken by distant peals of thunder, accompanied by great fierce
rain-drops.

Daisy drew her cloak closer about her, struggling bravely on through
the storm and the darkness, her heart beating so loudly she wondered
it did not break.

Poor child! how little she knew she was fast approaching the crisis of
her life!

She remembered, with a little sob, the last time she had traversed
that road--she was seated by John Brooks's side straining her eyes
toward the bend in the road, watching eagerly for the first glimpse of
the magnolia-tree, and the handsome young husband waiting there.

Coy blushes suffused Daisy's cheeks as she struggled on through the
pouring rain. She forgot she was a wretched, unpitied, forsaken little
bride, on a mission of such great importance. She was only a simple
child, after all, losing sight of all the whole world, as her thoughts
dwelt on the handsome young fellow, her husband in name only, whom she
saw waiting for her at the trysting-place, looking so cool, so
handsome and lovable in his white linen suit and blue tie; his white
straw hat, with the blue-dotted band around it, lying on the green
grass beside him, and the sunshine drifting through the green leaves
on his smiling face and brown, curling hair.

"If Rex had only known I was innocent, he could not have judged me so
harshly. Oh, my love--my love!" she cried out. "Heaven must have made
us for each other, but a fate more cruel than death has torn us
asunder. Oh, Rex, my love, if you had only been more patient with
me!"

She crept carefully along the road through the intense darkness and
the down-pouring rain. She knew every inch of the ground. She could
not lose her way. She reached the turn in the road which was but a few
feet distant from the magnolia-tree where first she had met Rex and
where she had seen him last--a few steps more and she would reach it.

A blinding glare of lightning lighted up the scene for one brief
instant; there was the tree, but, oh! was it only a fancy of her
imagination? she thought she saw a man's figure kneeling under it.

"Who was he, and what was he doing there?" she wondered. She stood