She remembered how she had walked home from the rectory with Rex in the moonlight, and thought to herself how funny it sounded to hear Rex call her his wife, in that rich melodious voice of his. Septima had said it was such a terrible thing to be married. She had found it just the reverse, as she glanced up into her pretty young husband's face, as they walked home together; and how well she remembered how Rex had taken 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 lurid light, and she saw a little white cross, with white daisies growing around it, and upon the cross, in that one meteoric flash, she read the words, "Sacred to the memory of Daisy Brooks." She did not faint, or cry out, or utter any word. She realized all in an instant why Rex had been there. Perhaps he felt some remorse for casting her off so cruelly. If some tender regret for her, whom he supposed dead, was not stirring in his heart, why was he there, kneeling before the little cross which bore her name, on his wedding-night? Could it be that he had ever loved her? She held out her arms toward the blazing lights that shone in the distance from Whitestone Hall, with a yearning, passionate cry. Surely, hers was the saddest fate that had ever fallen to the lot of a young girl. A great thrill of joy filled her heart, that she was able to prevent the marriage. She arose from her knees and made her way swiftly through the storm and the darkness, toward the distant cotton fields. She did not wish to enter the Hall by the main gate; there was a small path, seldom used, that led to the Hall, which she had often taken from John Brooks's cottage; that was the one she chose to-night. Although the storm raged in all its fury without, the interior of Whitestone 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's ear, as she walked hurriedly up the path. The damp air that swept across her face with the beating rain was odorous with the perfume of rare exotics. The path up which she walked commanded a full view of Pluma Hurlhurst'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 soft white swan's-down and her dainty white satin-slippered feet rested on a crimson velvet hassock. "How beautiful she is!" thought the poor little child-wife, wistfully gazing at her fair, false enemy. "I can not wonder Rex is dazzled by her peerless, royal beauty. I was mad to indulge the fatal, foolish dream that he could ever love me, poor, plain little Daisy Brooks."