did not
know the flowers were daisies; yet they seemed so familiar to the
touch.

She remembered how she had walked home from the rectory with Rex in
the moonlight, and thought to herself how funny it sounded to hear Rex
call her his wife, in that rich melodious voice of his. Septima had
said it was such a terrible thing to be married. She had found it just
the reverse, as she glanced up into her pretty young husband's face,
as they walked home together; and how well she remembered how Rex had
taken her in his arms at the gate, kissing her rosy, blushing face,
until she cried out for mercy.

A sudden, blinding flash of lightning lighted up the spot with a lurid
light, and she saw a little white cross, with white daisies growing
around it, and upon the cross, in that one meteoric flash, she read
the words, "Sacred to the memory of Daisy Brooks."

She did not faint, or cry out, or utter any word. She realized all in
an instant why Rex had been there. Perhaps he felt some remorse for
casting her off so cruelly. If some tender regret for her, whom he
supposed dead, was not stirring in his heart, why was he there,
kneeling before the little cross which bore her name, on his
wedding-night?

Could it be that he had ever loved her? She held out her arms toward
the blazing lights that shone in the distance from Whitestone Hall,
with a yearning, passionate cry. Surely, hers was the saddest fate
that had ever fallen to the lot of a young girl.

A great thrill of joy filled her heart, that she was able to prevent
the marriage.

She arose from her knees and made her way swiftly through the storm
and the darkness, toward the distant cotton fields. She did not wish
to enter the Hall by the main gate; there was a small path, seldom
used, that led to the Hall, which she had often taken from John
Brooks's cottage; that was the one she chose to-night.

Although the storm raged in all its fury without, the interior of
Whitestone Hall was ablaze with light, that streamed with a bright,
golden glow from every casement.

Strains of music, mingled with the hum of voices, fell upon Daisy's
ear, as she walked hurriedly up the path. The damp air that swept
across her face with the beating rain was odorous with the perfume of
rare exotics.

The path up which she walked commanded a full view of Pluma
Hurlhurst's boudoir.

The crimson satin curtains, for some reason, were still looped back,
and she could see the trim little maid arra