CHAPTER XXXVI.
The shade of night was wrapping its dusky mantle over the earth asDaisy, flushed and excited, and trembling in every limb, alighted fromthe train at Allendale.
Whitestone Hall was quite a distance from the station; she had quite awalk before her.
Not a breath of air seemed to stir the branches of the trees, and theinky blackness of the sky presaged the coming storm.
Since dusk the coppery haze seemed to gather itself together; greatpurple masses of clouds piled themselves in the sky; a lurid lightoverspread the heavens, and now and then the dense, oppressive silencewas broken by distant peals of thunder, accompanied by great fiercerain-drops.
Daisy drew her cloak closer about her, struggling bravely on throughthe storm and the darkness, her heart beating so loudly she wonderedit did not break.
Poor child! how little she knew she was fast approaching the crisis ofher life!
She remembered, with a little sob, the last time she had traversedthat road--she was seated by John Brooks's side straining her eyestoward the bend in the road, watching eagerly for the first glimpse ofthe magnolia-tree, and the handsome young husband waiting there.
Coy blushes suffused Daisy's cheeks as she struggled on through thepouring rain. She forgot she was a wretched, unpitied, forsaken littlebride, on a mission of such great importance. She was only a simplechild, after all, losing sight of all the whole world, as her thoughtsdwelt on the handsome young fellow, her husband in name only, whom shesaw waiting for her at the trysting-place, looking so cool, sohandsome and lovable in his white linen suit and blue tie; his whitestraw hat, with the blue-dotted band around it, lying on the greengrass beside him, and the sunshine drifting through the green leaveson his smiling face and brown, curling hair.
"If Rex had only known I was innocent, he could not have judged me soharshly. Oh, my love--my love!" she cried out. "Heaven must have madeus for each other, but a fate more cruel than death has torn usasunder. Oh, Rex, my love, if you had only been more patient withme!"
She crept carefully along the road through the intense darkness andthe down-pouring rain. She knew every inch of the ground. She couldnot lose her way. She reached the turn in the road which was but a fewfeet distant from the magnolia-tree where first she had met Rex andwhere 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 briefinstant; there was the tree, but, oh! was it only a fancy of herimagination? she thought she saw a man's figure kneeling under it.
"Who was he, and what was he doing there?" she wondered. She stoodrooted to the spot. "Perhaps he had taken refuge there from the furyof the storm."
Daisy was a shrinking, timid little creature; she dared not move astep further, although the golden moments that flitted by were asprecious as her life-blood.
She drew back, faint with fear, among the protecting shadows of thetrees. Another flash of light--the man was surely gathering wildflowers from the rain-drenched grass.
"Surely the man must be mad," thought Daisy, with a cold thrill ofhorror.
Her limbs trembled so from sheer fright they refused to bear herslight weight, and with a shudder of terror she sunk down in the wetgrass, her eyes fixed as one fascinated on the figure under the tree,watching his every movement, as the lurid lightning illumined thescene at brief intervals.
The great bell from the turret of Whitestone Hall pealed the hour ofseven, and in the lightning's flash she saw the man arise from hisknees; in one hand he held a small bunch of flowers, the other waspressed 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 awayin the direction of Whitestone Hall.
"Why was Rex there alone on his wedding-night under the magnolia-treein the terrible storm?" she asked herself, in a strange, bewilderedway. "What could it mean?" She had heard the ceremony was to beperformed promptly at half past eight, it was seven already. "Whatcould it mean?"
She had been too much startled and dismayed when she found it was Rexto make herself known. Ah, no, Rex must never know she was so nearhim; it was Pluma she must see.
"Why had he come to the magnolia-tree?" she asked herself over andover again. A moment later she had reached the self-same spot, and waskneeling beneath the tree, just as Rex had done. She put out herlittle white hand to caress the grass upon which her husband hadknelt, 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 nothingbut the soft carpet of green grass, she remembered.
One or two beneath her touch were broken from the stem. She knew Rexmust have dropped them, and the poor little soul pressed the flowersto her lips, murmuring passionate, loving words over them. She did notknow the flowers were daisies; yet they seemed so familiar to thetouch.
She remembered how she had walked home from the rectory with Rex inthe moonlight, and thought to herself how funny it sounded to hear Rexcall her his wife, in that rich melodious voice of his. Septima hadsaid it was such a terrible thing to be married. She had found it justthe reverse, as she glanced up into her pretty young husband's face,as they walked home together; and how well she remembered how Rex hadtaken 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 luridlight, and she saw a little white cross, with white daisies growingaround it, and upon the cross, in that one meteoric flash, she readthe words, "Sacred to the memory of Daisy Brooks."
She did not faint, or cry out, or utter any word. She realized all inan instant why Rex had been there. Perhaps he felt some remorse forcasting her off so cruelly. If some tender regret for her, whom hesupposed dead, was not stirring in his heart, why was he there,kneeling before the little cross which bore her name, on hiswedding-night?
Could it be that he had ever loved her? She held out her arms towardthe blazing lights that shone in the distance from Whitestone Hall,with a yearning, passionate cry. Surely, hers was the saddest fatethat had ever fallen to the lot of a young girl.
A great thrill of joy filled her heart, that she was able to preventthe marriage.
She arose from her knees and made her way swiftly through the stormand the darkness, toward the distant cotton fields. She did not wishto enter the Hall by the main gate; there was a small path, seldomused, that led to the Hall, which she had often taken from JohnBrooks's cottage; that was the one she chose to-night.
Although the storm raged in all its fury without, the interior ofWhitestone 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'sear, as she walked hurriedly up the path. The damp air that sweptacross her face with the beating rain was odorous with the perfume ofrare exotics.
The path up which she walked commanded a full view of PlumaHurlhurst's boudoir.
The crimson satin curtains, for some reason, were still looped back,and she could see the trim little maid arranging her long dark hair;she wore a silver-white dressing-robe, bordered around with softwhite swan's-down and her dainty white satin-slippered feet rested ona crimson velvet hassock.
"How beautiful she is!" thought the poor little child-wife, wistfullygazing at her fair, false enemy. "I can not wonder Rex is dazzled byher peerless, royal beauty. I was mad to indulge the fatal, foolishdream that he could ever love me, poor, plain little Daisy Brooks."
Daisy drew her cloak closer about her, and her thick veil moresecurely over her face. As she raised the huge brass knocker her heartbeat pitifully, yet she told herself she must be brave to the bitterend.
One, two, three minutes passed. Was no one coming to answer thesummons? Yes--some one came at last, a spruce littl
e French maid, whomDaisy never remembered having seen before.
She laughed outright when Daisy falteringly stated her errand.
"You are mad to think mademoiselle will see you to-night," sheanswered, contemptuously. "Do you not know this is her wedding-night?"
"She is not married _yet_?" cried Daisy, in a low, wailing voice. "Oh,I must see her!"
With a quizzical expression crossing her face the girl shrugged hershoulders, as she scanned the little dark, dripping figure, answeringmockingly:
"The poor make one grand mistake, insisting on what the rich must do.I say again, my lady will not see you--you had better go about yourbusiness."
"Oh, I _must_ see her! indeed, I must!" pleaded Daisy. "Your heart,dear girl, is human, and you can see my anguish is no light one."
Her courage and high resolve seemed to give way, and she wept--aswomen weep only once in a lifetime--but the heart of the French maidwas obdurate.
"Mademoiselle would only be angry," she said; "it would be as much asmy place is worth to even mention you to her."
"But my errand can brook no delay," urged Daisy. "You do not realize,"she gasped, brokenly, while her delicate frame was shaken with sobs,and the hot tears fell like rain down her face.
"All that you say is useless," cried the girl, impatiently, as shepurposely obstructed the passage-way, holding the doorknob in herhand; "all your speech is in vain--she will not see you, I say--I willnot take her your message."
"Then I will go to her myself," cried Daisy, in desperate determination.
"What's the matter, Marie?" cried a shrill voice from the head of therose-lighted stairway; "what in the world keeps you down there solong? Come here instantly."
Daisy knew too well the handsome, impatient face and the imperious,commanding voice.
"Miss Hurlhurst," she called out, piteously, "I must see you for a fewminutes. I shall die if you refuse me. My errand is one of almost lifeand death; if you knew how vitally important it was you would notrefuse me," she panted.
Pluma Hurlhurst laughed a little hard laugh that had no music in it.
"What would a hundred lives or deaths matter to me?" she said,contemptuously. "I would not listen to you ten minutes to-night if Iactually knew it was to save your life," cried the haughty beauty,stamping her slippered foot impatiently.
"It is for your own sake," pleaded Daisy. "See, I kneel to you, MissHurlhurst. If you would not commit a crime, I implore you by all youhold sacred, to hear me--grant me but a few brief moments."
"Not an instant," cried Pluma, scornfully; "shut the door, Marie, andsend that person from the house."
"Oh, what shall I do!" cried Daisy, wringing her hands. "I am drivento the very verge of madness! Heaven pity me--the bitter consequencemust fall upon your own head."
She turned away with a low, bitter cry, as the maid slammed the heavyoaken door in her face.
"There is no other way for me to do," she told herself, despairingly,"but to see Rex. I do not know how I am going to live through theordeal of entering his presence--listening to his voice--knowing Ibring him such a burden of woe--spoiling his life for the secondtime."
She did not hear the door quietly reopen.
"I have heard all that has just passed, young lady," said a kind voiceclose beside her. "I am extremely sorry for you--your case seems apitiful one. I am sorry my daughter refused to see you; perhaps I canbe of some assistance to you. I am Miss Hurlhurst's father."