LITMIR.BIZ

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have no mother–or father,” answered Daisy. “All my life I have lived with John Brooks and his sister Septima, on the Hurlhurst Plantation. I call them aunt and uncle. Septima has often told me no relationship at all existed between us.”

      “You are an orphan, then?” suggested the sympathetic Sara. “Is there no one in all the world related to you?”

      “Yes–no–o,” answered Daisy, confusedly, thinking of Rex, her young husband, and of the dearest relationship in all the world which existed between them.

      “What a pity,” sighed Sara. “Well, Daisy,” she cried, impulsively, throwing both her arms around her and giving her a hearty kiss, “you and I will be all the world to each other. I shall tell you all my secrets and you must tell me yours. There’s some girls you can trust, and some you can’t. If you tell them your secrets, the first time you have a spat your secret is a secret no longer. Every girl in the school knows all about it; of course you are sure to make up again. But,” added Sara, with a wise expression, “after you are once deceived, you can never trust them again.”

      “I have never known many girls,” replied Daisy. “I do not know how others do, but I’m sure you can always trust my friendship.”

      And the two girls sealed their compact with a kiss, just as the great bell in the belfry rang, warning them they must be at their lessons again–recess was over.

      CHAPTER VIII

      In one of the private offices of Messrs. Tudor, Peck & Co., the shrewd Baltimore detectives, stood Rex, waiting patiently until the senior member of the firm should be at leisure.

      “Now, my dear sir, I will attend you with pleasure,” said Mr. Tudor, sealing and dispatching the note he had just finished, and motioning Rex to a seat.

      “I shall be pleased if you will permit me to light a cigar,” said Rex, taking the seat indicated.

      “Certainly, certainly; smoke, if you feel so inclined, by all means,” replied the detective, watching with a puzzled twinkle in his eye the fair, boyish face of his visitor. “No, thank you,” he said, as Rex tendered him an Havana; “I never smoke during business hours.”

      “I wish to engage your services to find out the whereabouts of–of–of–my wife,” said Rex, hesitatingly. “She has left me–suddenly–she fled–on the very night of our marriage!”

      It hurt Rex’s pride cruelly to make this admission, and a painful flush crept up into the dark rings of hair lying on his white forehead.

      Mr. Tudor was decidedly amazed. He could not realize how any sane young woman could leave so handsome a young fellow as the one before him. In most cases the shoe was on the other foot; but he was too thoroughly master of his business to express surprise in his face. He merely said:

      “Go on, sir; go on!”

      And Rex did go on, never sparing himself in describing how he urged Daisy to marry him on the night of the fête, and of their parting, and the solemn promise to meet on the morrow, and of his wild grief–more bitter than death–when he had found the cottage empty.

      “It reads like the page of a romance,” said Rex, with a dreary smile, leaning his head on his white hand. “But I must find her!” he cried, with energy. “I shall search the world over for her. If it takes every cent of my fortune, I shall find Daisy!”

      Rex looked out of the window at the soft, fleecy clouds overhead, little dreaming Daisy was watching those self-same clouds, scarcely a stone’s throw from the very spot where he sat, and at that moment he was nearer Daisy than he would be for perhaps years again, for the strong hand of Fate was slowly but surely drifting them asunder.

      For some moments neither spoke.

      “Perhaps,” said Mr. Tudor, breaking the silence, “there was a previous lover in the case?”

      “I am sure there was not!” said Rex, eagerly.

      Still the idea was new to him. He adored Daisy with a mad, idolatrous adoration, almost amounting to worship, and a love so intense is susceptible to the poisonous breath of jealousy, and jealousy ran in Rex’s veins. He could not endure the thought of Daisy’s–his Daisy’s–eyes brightening or her cheek flushing at the approach of a rival–that fair, flower-like face, sweet and innocent as a child’s–Daisy, whom he so madly loved.

      “Well,” said Mr. Tudor, as Rex arose to depart, “I will do all I can for you. Leave your address, please, in case I should wish to communicate with you.”

      “I think I shall go back to Allendale, remaining there at least a month or so. I have a strong conviction Daisy might come back, or at least write to me there.”

      Mr. Tudor jotted down the address, feeling actually sorry for the handsome young husband clinging to such a frail straw of hope. In his own mind, long before Rex had concluded his story, he had settled his opinion–that from some cause the young wife had fled from him with some rival, bitterly repenting her mad, hasty marriage.

      “I have great faith in your acknowledged ability,” said Rex, grasping Mr. Tudor’s outstretched hand. “I shall rest my hopes upon your finding Daisy. I can not, will not, believe she is false. I would as soon think of the light of heaven playing me false as my sweet little love!”

      The dark mantle of night had folded its dusky wings over the inmates of the seminary. All the lights were out in the young ladies’ rooms–as the nine-o’clock call, “All lights out!” had been called some ten minutes before–all the lights save one, flickering, dim, and uncertain, from Daisy’s window.

      “Oh, dear!” cried Daisy, laying her pink cheek down on the letter she was writing to Rex, “I feel as though I could do something very desperate to get away from here–and–and–back to Rex. Poor fellow!” she sighed, “I wonder what he thought, as the hours rolled by and I did not come? Of course he went over to the cottage,” she mused, “and Septima must have told him where I had gone. Rex will surely come for me to-morrow,” she told herself, with a sweet, shy blush.

      She read and reread the letter her trembling little hands had penned with many a heart-flutter. It was a shy, sweet little letter, beginning with “Dear Mr. Rex,” and ending with, “Yours sincerely, Daisy.” It was just such a dear, timid letter as many a pure, fresh-hearted loving young girl would write, brimful of the love which filled her guileless heart for her handsome, debonair Rex–with many allusions to the secret between them which weighed so heavily on her heart, sealing her lips for his dear sake.

      After sealing and directing her precious letter, and placing it in the letter-bag which hung at the lower end of the corridor, Daisy hurried back to her own apartment and crept softly into her little white bed, beside Sara, and was soon fast asleep, dreaming of Rex and a dark, haughty, scornful face falling between them and the sunshine–the cold, mocking face of Pluma Hurlhurst.

      Mme. Whitney, as was her custom, always looked over the out-going mail early in the morning, sealing the letters of which she approved, and returning, with a severe reprimand, those which did not come up to the standard of her ideas.

      “What is this?” she cried, in amazement, turning the letter Daisy had written in her hand. “Why, I declare, it is actually sealed!” Without the least compunction she broke the seal, grimly scanning its contents from beginning to end. If there was anything under the sun the madame abominated it was love-letters.

      It was an established fact that no tender billets-doux found their way from the academy; the argus-eyed madame was too watchful for that.

      With a lowering brow, she gave the bell-rope a hasty pull.

      “Jenkins,” she said to the servant answering her summons, “send Miss Brooks to me here at once!”

      “Poor little thing!” cried the sympathetic Jenkins to herself. “I wonder what in the world is amiss now? There’s fire in the madame’s eye. I hope she don’t intend to scold poor little Daisy Brooks.” Jenkins had taken a violent fancy to the sweet-faced, golden-haired, timid young stranger.

      “It must be something terrible,

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