Once, twice, thrice he knocked, receiving no answer to his summons.
“That’s strange,” he mused, “exceedingly strange.”
Hardly knowing what prompted him to do it, Rex turned the knob; it yielded to the touch, swinging slowly back on its creaking hinges.
“Good heavens!” he ejaculated, gazing wildly about him and as pale as death, “Daisy is gone and the cottage is empty!”
He leaned against the door-way, putting his hand to his brow like one who had received a heavy blow; and the bare walls seemed to take up the cry and echo, mockingly, “Gone!”
The blow was so sudden and unexpected he was completely bewildered; his brain was in a whirl.
He saw a laborer crossing the cotton-fields and called to him.
“I was looking for John Brooks,” said Rex. “I find the cottage empty. Can you tell me where they have gone?”
“Gone!” echoed the man, surprisedly. “I don’t understand it; I was passing the door a few hours since, just as the stage drove off with John Brooks and Daisy. ‘Good-bye, neighbor,’ he called out to me, ‘I am off on an extended business trip. You must bring your wife over to see Septima; she will be lonely, I’ll warrant.’ There was no sign of him moving then. I–I don’t understand it.”
“You say he took Daisy with him,” asked Rex, with painful eagerness. “Can you tell me where they went?”
The man shook his head and passed on. Rex was more mystified than ever.
“What can it all mean?” he asked himself. “Surely,” he cried, “Daisy–dear little innocent blue-eyed Daisy–could not have meant to deceive me; yet why has she not told me?”
The hot blood mounted to his temples. Perhaps Daisy regretted having married him and had fled from him. The thought was so bitter it almost took his breath away. Rex loved her so madly, so passionately, so blindly, he vowed to himself he would search heaven and earth to find her. And in that terrible hour the young husband tasted the first draught of the cup of bitterness which he was to drain to the very dregs.
Poor Rex! he little knew this was but the first stroke of Pluma Hurlhurst’s fatal revenge–to remove her rival from her path that she might win him back to his old allegiance.
Early that morning there had been great bustle and stir in the Brooks’ cottage. In vain Daisy had attempted to steal quietly away into her own little room and write a hasty line to Rex, which, if all other means failed her, she could send to him by one of the men employed in the fields, begging him to come to her at once. Septima would not leave her to herself for a single instant. Even her writing-desk, which had stood on the bureau in the corner for years, was gone. Poor little Daisy cried out to herself–fate was against her.
“I should like to say good-bye to the old familiar scenes, Septima,” she said, making a desperate effort to meet Rex by some means. “I should like to see the old magnolia-tree down in the glade just once before I go.”
“Nonsense,” replied Septima, sharply, a malicious smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. “I guess the trees and the flowers won’t wither and die of grief if you don’t bid them good-bye; it’s too late now, anyhow. See, here is the stage coming already,” she cried, glancing out of the window, “and here comes John with his valise and umbrella. Make haste, Daisy; where’s your gloves and satchel?”
For one brief instant Daisy stood irresolute; if she had only dared cry out to them “I am a bride; it is cruel to send me away from Rex,” what a world of misery might have been spared her! but her lips were sealed.
“Well, well,” cried John Brooks, hurriedly entering the room; “not ready yet, little girlie? We must be off at once or we will miss the train.”
In vain Daisy protested brokenly she could not go, and the agony in those blue uplifted eyes would have touched a heart of stone. Still John Brooks believed it would be a sin to comply with her request. Go to school she must, for Heaven had intended a cultured mind should accompany so beautiful a face. Half lifting, half carrying the slight figure in his powerful arms, Daisy was borne, half fainting and sobbing as though her heart would break, to the vehicle which stood in waiting.
On through the fragrant stillness of that sunshiny summer morning the jolting stage rolled rapidly on its way, crossing the little bridge where she had lingered only the night before with Rex, her husband; they would soon reach the alder bushes that skirted the pool. The next bend in the road would bring her in sight of the magnolia-tree where Rex would be awaiting her.
Ah, thank Heaven, it was not too late! she could fling out her arms, and cry out: “Rex, my love, my darling, they are bearing me from you! Save me, Rex, my darling, save me!”
John Brooks sat quietly by her side silently wondering what had come over little Daisy–sweet, impulsive little Daisy–in a single night. “She is only a child,” he muttered to himself, “full of whims and caprices; crying her eyes out last week because she could not go off to school, and now crying because she’s got to go.”
Swiftly the stage rolled down the green sloping hill-side; in another moment it had reached the alder bushes and gained the curve of the road, and she saw Rex lying on the green grass waiting for her. The sunlight drifting through the magnolia blossoms fell upon his handsome, upturned, smiling face and the dark curls pushed back from his white forehead. “Rex! Rex!” she cried, wringing her white hands, but the words died away on her white lips, making no sound. Then the world seemed to close darkly around her, and poor little Daisy, the unhappy girl-bride, fell back in the coach in a deadly swoon.
CHAPTER VII
“Poor little Daisy!” cried John Brooks, wiping away a suspicious moisture from his eyes with his rough, toil-hardened hand, “she takes it pretty hard now; but the time will come when she will thank me for it. Heaven knows there’s nothing in this world more valuable than an education; and she will need it, poor little, motherless child!”
As the stage drove up before the station Daisy opened her blue eyes with a sigh. “I can at least write to Rex at once,” she thought, “and explain the whole matter to him.” Daisy smiled as she thought Rex would be sure to follow on the very next train.
John Brooks watched the smile and the flush of the rosy face, and believed Daisy was beginning to feel more reconciled about going to school.
“I hope we will get there by noon,” said John, anxiously, taking the seat beside her on the crowded train. “If we missed the train at the cross-roads it would be a serious calamity. I should be obliged to send you on alone; for I must get to New York by night, as I have some very important business to transact for the plantation which must be attended to at once.”
“Alone!” echoed Daisy, tremblingly. “Why, Uncle John, I was never away from home alone in my life!”
“That’s just the difficulty,” he answered, perplexedly. “I have always guarded my little flower from the world’s cruel blasts, and you are unused to the rough side of life.”
“Still, I could go on alone,” persisted Daisy, bravely.
John Brooks laughed outright.
“You would get lost at the first corner, my girlie! Then I should have to fly around to these newspaper offices, advertising for the recovery of a little country Daisy which was either lost, strayed, or stolen. No, no, little one!” he cried; “I would not trust you alone, a stranger in a great city. A thousand ills might befall a young girl with a face like yours.”
“No one would know I was a stranger,” replied Daisy, innocently. “I should simply inquire the way to Madame Whitney’s, and follow the directions given me.”
“There! didn’t I tell you you could never find the way?” laughed John until he was red in the face. “You suppose a city is like our country lanes, eh?–where you tell a stranger: ‘Follow that path until you come to a sign-post, then that will tell you which road leads to the village.’ Ha! ha! ha! Why, my dear little Daisy,