rooted to the spot. "Perhaps he had taken refuge there from the fury
of the storm."

Daisy was a shrinking, timid little creature; she dared not move a
step further, although the golden moments that flitted by were as
precious as her life-blood.

She drew back, faint with fear, among the protecting shadows of the
trees. Another flash of light--the man was surely gathering wild
flowers from the rain-drenched grass.

"Surely the man must be mad," thought Daisy, with a cold thrill of
horror.

Her limbs trembled so from sheer fright they refused to bear her
slight weight, and with a shudder of terror she sunk down in the wet
grass, her eyes fixed as one fascinated on the figure under the tree,
watching his every movement, as the lurid lightning illumined the
scene at brief intervals.

The great bell from the turret of Whitestone Hall pealed the hour of
seven, and in the lightning's flash she saw the man arise from his
knees; in one hand he held a small bunch of flowers, the other was
pressed over his heart.

Surely there was something strangely familiar in that graceful form;
then he turned his face toward her.

In that one instantaneous glance she had recognized him--it was Rex,
her husband--as he turned hastily from the spot, hurrying rapidly away
in the direction of Whitestone Hall.

"Why was Rex there alone on his wedding-night under the magnolia-tree
in the terrible storm?" she asked herself, in a strange, bewildered
way. "What could it mean?" She had heard the ceremony was to be
performed promptly at half past eight, it was seven already. "What
could it mean?"

She had been too much startled and dismayed when she found it was Rex
to make herself known. Ah, no, Rex must never know she was so near
him; it was Pluma she must see.

"Why had he come to the magnolia-tree?" she asked herself over and
over again. A moment later she had reached the self-same spot, and was
kneeling beneath the tree, just as Rex had done. She put out her
little white hand to caress the grass upon which her husband had
knelt, but it was not grass which met her touch, but a bed of flowers;
that was strange, too.

She never remembered flowers to grow on that spot. There was nothing
but the soft carpet of green grass, she remembered.

One or two beneath her touch were broken from the stem. She knew Rex
must have dropped them, and the poor little soul pressed the flowers
to her lips, murmuring passionate, loving words over them. She