After leaving the proper medicines and giving minute instructions as to how and when it should be administered, Dr. West took his departure, with a strange, vague uneasiness at his heart.
"Pshaw!" he muttered to himself, as he drove briskly along the shadowy road, yet seeing none of its beauty, "how strange it is these young girls will fall in love and marry such fellows as that!" he mused.
"There is something about his face that I don"t like; he is a scoundrel, and I"ll bet my life on it!"
The doctor brought his fist down on his knee with such a resounding blow that poor old Dobbin broke into a gallop. But, drive as fast he would, he could not forget the sweet, childish face that had taken such a strong hold upon his fancy. The trembling red lips and pleading blue eyes haunted him all the morning, as though they held some secret they would fain have whispered.
All the night long Daisy clung to the hands that held hers, begging and praying her not to leave her alone, until the poor old lady was quite overcome by the fatigue of continued watching beside her couch.
Rest or sleep seemed to have fled from Daisy"s bright, restless eyes.
"Don"t go away," she cried; "everybody goes away. I do not belong to any one. I am all--all--alone," she would sigh, drearily.
Again she fancied she was with Rex, standing beneath the magnolia boughs in the sunshine; again, she was clinging to his arm--while some cruel woman insulted her--sobbing pitifully upon his breast; again, she was parting from him at the gate, asking him if what they had done was right; then she was in some school-room, begging piteously for some cruel letter; then out on the waves in the storm and the on-coming darkness of night.
The sisters relieved one another at regular intervals. They had ceased to listen to her pathetic little appeals for help, or the wild cries of agony that burst from the red feverish lips as she started up from her slumbers with stifled sobs, moaning out that the time was flying; that she must escape anywhere, anywhere, while there were still fifteen minutes left her.
She never once mentioned Stanwick"s name, or Septima"s, but called incessantly for Rex and poor old Uncle John.
"Who in the world do you suppose Rex is?" said Matilda, thoughtfully.
"That name is continually on her lips--the last word she utters when she closes her eyes, the first word to cross her lips when she awakes.
That must certainly be the handsome young fellow she met at the gate.
If he is Rex I do not wonder the poor child loved him so. He was the handsomest, most n.o.ble-looking, frank-faced young man I have ever seen; and he took on in a way that made me actually cry when I told him she was married. He would not believe it, until I called the child and she told him herself it was the truth. I was sorry from the bottom of my heart that young fellow had not won her instead of this Stanwick, they were so suited to each other."
"Ah," said Ruth, after a moment"s pause, "I think I have the key to this mystery. She loves this handsome Rex, that is evident; perhaps they have had a lovers" quarrel, and she has married this one on the spur of the moment through pique. Oh, the pretty little dear!" sighed Ruth. "I hope she will never rue it."
CHAPTER XV.
Slowly the days came and went for the next fortnight. The crisis had pa.s.sed, and Dr. West said she would soon recover. The beautiful, long, golden hair had been shorn from the pretty little head, and the rose-bloom had died out of the pretty cheeks, but the bright, restless light never left the beautiful blue eyes--otherwise there was but little change in Daisy.
It had been just two weeks that morning, they told her, as she opened her eyes to consciousness, since she had first been stricken down.
"And I have been here ever since?" she inquired, wonderingly.
"Yes, my dear," replied Ruth Burton, softly patting the thin white cheeks; "of course you have been here ever since. I am afraid we are going to lose you soon, however. We have received a letter from your husband, saying he will be here some time to-morrow. Shall you be pleased to see him, dear?"
In one single instant all the dim, horrible past rushed back to Daisy"s mind. She remembered flinging herself down in the clover-scented gra.s.s, and the world growing dark around her, as the terrible words of Stanwick rang in her ears--he would be back in just fifteen minutes to claim her.
Ah, bonny little Daisy, tossing on your pillow, babbling empty nothings, better would it have been for you, perhaps, if you had dropped the weary burden of your life into the kindly arms of death then and there than to struggle onward into the dark mystery which lay entombed in your future.
"Shall you be glad to see Mr. Stanwick, dear?" repeated the old lady, and, unconscious of any wrong, she placed the letter he had written in Daisy"s hands. Like one in a terrible dream, Daisy read it quite through to the end. "You see, he says he incloses fifty dollars extra for you, dear. I have placed it with the twenty safe in your little purse."
"Oh, Miss Ruth, you are so very kind to me. I shall never forget how good you have all been to me," said Daisy, softly, watching the three peaceful-faced old ladies, who had drawn their rocking-chairs, as was their custom, all in a row, and sat quietly knitting in the sunshine, the gentle click of their needles falling soothingly upon Daisy"s poor, tired brain.
"We shall miss you sadly when you go," said Ruth, knitting away vigorously. "You have been like a ray of sunshine in this gloomy old house. We have all learned to love you very dearly."
"You love me?" repeated Daisy, wonderingly. "I was beginning to believe every one hated me in the whole world, every one has been so bitter and so cruel with me, except poor old Uncle John. I often wonder why G.o.d lets me live--what am I to do with my life! Mariana in the moated grange, was not more to be pitied than I. Death relieved her, but I am left to struggle on."
"Heaven hear her!" cried Ruth. "One suffers a great deal to lose all interest in life. You are so young, dear, you could not have suffered much."
"I have lost all I hold dear in life," she answered, pathetically, lifting her beautiful, childish blue eyes toward the white fleecy clouds tinted by the setting sun.
Their hearts ached for the pretty, lonely little creature. They believed she was thinking of her mother. So she was--and of Rex, the handsome young husband whom she so madly idolized in her worshipful childish fashion, who was worse than dead to her--the husband who should have believed in her honor and purity, though the world had cried out to him that she was false. He had thrust aside all possibility of her writing to him; cast her out from his life; left her to be persecuted beyond all endurance; bound by a vow she dare not break to keep her marriage with Rex a secret. Though he was more cruel than death, she loved Rex with a devotion that never faltered.
Daisy lay there, thinking of it all, while the soft, golden sunlight died out of the sky, and the deep dusk of twilight crept softly on.
Then the old ladies arose from their chairs, folded their knitting, and put it away. Dusk was their hour for retiring.
They were discussing which one should sit up with Daisy, when she summoned them all to her bedside.
"I want you all to go to bed and never mind me," coaxed Daisy, with a strange light in her eyes. "Take a good sleep, as I am going to do. I shall be very happy to-morrow--happier than I have ever been before!"
She clasped her white arms about their necks in turn, clinging to them, and sobbing as though she was loath to part with them.
Ruth"s hand she held last and longest.
"Please kiss me again," she sobbed. "Clasp your arms tight around me, and say "Good-night, Daisy." It will be so nice to dream about."
With a cheery laugh the old lady lovingly complied with her request.
"You must close those bright little eyes of yours, and drift quickly into the Land of Nod, or there will be no roses in these cheeks to-morrow. Good-night, my pretty little dear!"
"Good-night, dear, kind Ruth!" sighed Daisy.
And she watched the old lady with wistful, hungry eyes as she picked up her shaded night-lamp, that threw such a soft, sweet radiance over her aged face, as she quietly quitted the room.
A sudden change came over Daisy"s face as the sound of her footsteps died away in the hall.
"Oh, G.o.d! help me!" she cried, piteously, struggling to her feet. "I must be far away from here when daylight breaks."
She was so weak she almost fell back on her bed again when she attempted to rise. The thought of the morrow lent strength to her flagging energies. A strange mist seemed rising before her. Twice she seemed near fainting, but her indomitable courage kept her from sinking, as she thought of what the morrow would have in store for her.
Quietly she counted over the little store in her purse by the moon"s rays.
"Seventy dollars! Oh, I could never use all that in my life!" she cried. "Besides, I could never touch one cent of Stanwick"s money. It would burn my fingers--I am sure it would!"
Folding the bill carefully in two she placed it beneath her little snowy ruffled pillow. Then catching up the thick, dark shawl which lay on an adjacent table, she wrapped it quickly about her. She opened the door leading out into the hall, and listened. All was still--solemnly still.
Daisy crept softly down the stairs, and out into the quiet beauty of the still, summer night.
"Rex," she wailed, softly, "perhaps when I am dead you will feel sorry for poor little Daisy, and some one may tell you how you have wronged me in your thoughts, but you would not let me tell you how it happened!"
In the distance she saw the shimmer of water lying white and still under the moon"s rays, tipped by the silvery light of the stars.
"No, not that way," she cried, with a shudder; "some one might save me, and I want to die!"