"Shall you?" cried Rex. "Will you return home by the same path?" "Yes," she replied, "if Miss Pluma does not need me." "Good-bye, Daisy," he said. "I shall see you again." He held out his hand and her little fingers trembled and fluttered in his clasp. Daisy looked so happy yet so frightened, so charming yet so shy, Rex hardly knew how to define the feeling that stirred in his heart. He watched the graceful, fairy figure as Daisy tripped away--instead of thinking he had done a very foolish thing that bright morning. Rex lighted a cigar and fell to dreaming of sweet little Daisy Brooks, and wondering how he should pass the time until he should see her again. While Daisy almost flew up the broad gravel path to the house, the heavy burden she bore seemed light as a feather--no thought that she had been imprudent ever entered her mind. There was no one to warn her of the peril which lay in the witching depths of the handsome stranger's glances. All her young life she had dreamed of the hero who would one day come to her, just such a dream as all youthful maidens experience--an idol they enshrine in their innermost heart, and worship in secret, never dreaming of a cold, dark time when the idol may lie shattered in ruins at their feet. How little knew gentle Daisy Brooks of the fatal love which would drag her down to her doom! CHAPTER III. In an elegant boudoir, all crimson and gold, some hours later, sat Pluma Hurlhurst, reclining negligently on a satin divan, toying idly with a volume which lay in her lap. She tossed the book aside with a yawn, turning her superb dark eyes on the little figure bending over the rich trailing silks which were to adorn her own fair beauty on the coming evening. "So you think you would like to attend the lawn fête to-night, Daisy?" she asked, patronizingly. Daisy glanced up with a startled blush, "Oh, I should like it so much, Miss Pluma," she answered, hesitatingly, "if I only could!" "I think I shall gratify you," said Pluma, carelessly. "You have made yourself very valuable to me. I like the artistic manner you have twined these roses in my hair; the effect is quite picturesque." She glanced satisfiedly at her own magnificent reflection in the cheval-glass opposite. Titian alone could have reproduced those rich, marvelous colors--that perfect, queenly beauty. He would have painted the picture, and the world would have raved about its beauty. The dark masses of raven-black hair; the proud, haughty face, with its warm southern tints; the dusky eyes, lighted with fire and passion, and the red, curved lips. "I wish particularly to look my very best to-night, Daisy," she said; "that is why I wish you to remain. You can arrange those sprays of white heath in my hair superbly. Then you shall attend the fête, Daisy. Remember, you are not expected to take part in it; you must sit in some secluded nook where you will be quite unobserved."