No one dreamed of doubting the assertion. A general laugh followed, and the music struck up again, and the gay mirth of the fête resumed its sway. Long after the guests had departed Pluma sat in her boudoir, her heart torn with pain, love, and jealousy, her brain filled with schemes of vengeance. "I can not take her life!" she cried; "but if I could mar her beauty--the pink-and-white beauty of Daisy Brooks, which has won Rex from me--I would do it. I shall torture her for this," she cried. "I will win him from her though I wade through seas of blood. Hear me, Heaven," she cried, "and register my vow!" Pluma hastily rung the bell. "Saddle Whirlwind and Tempest at once!" she said to the servant who answered her summons. "It is after midnight, Miss Pluma. I--" There was a look in her eyes which would brook no further words. An hour later they had reached the cottage wherein slept Daisy Brooks, heedless of the danger that awaited her. "Wait for me here," said Pluma to the groom who accompanied her--"_I will not be long!_" CHAPTER IV. "Daisy," said Rex, gently, as he led her away from the lights and the echoing music out into the starlight that shone with a soft, silvery radiance over hill and vale, "I shall never forgive myself for being the cause of the cruel insult you have been forced to endure to-night. I declare it's a shame. I shall tell Pluma so to-morrow." "Oh, no--no--please don't, Mr. Rex. I--I--had no right to waltz with you," sobbed Daisy, "when I knew you were Pluma's lover." "Don't say that, Daisy," responded Rex, warmly. "I am glad, after all, everything has happened just as it did, otherwise I should never have known just how dear a certain little girl had grown to me; besides, I am not Pluma's lover, and never shall be now." "You have quarreled with her for my sake," whispered Daisy, regretfully. "I am so sorry--indeed I am." Daisy little dreamed, as she watched the deep flush rise to Rex's face, it was of her he was thinking, and not Pluma, by the words, "a certain little girl." Rex saw she did not understand him; he stopped short in the path, gazing down into those great, dreamy, pleading eyes that affected him so strangely. "Daisy," he said, gently, taking her little clinging hands from his arm, and clasping them in his own, "you must not be startled at what I am going to tell you. When I met you under the magnolia boughs, I knew I had met my fate. I said to myself: 'She, and no other, shall be my wife.'" "Your wife," she cried, looking at him in alarm. "Please don't say so. I don't want to be your wife." "Why not, Daisy?" he asked, quickly. "Because you are so far above me," sobbed Daisy. "You are so rich, and I am only poor little Daisy Brooks."