“I was not until yesterday, when my horse knocked her off her wheel and nearly caused a fatal accident. So I came this morning to beg her forgiveness.” Mrs. Fleming gave a grating laugh, and answered maliciously: “Perhaps Daisie may forgive you if she is very kind-hearted, but I am sure my Cousin Royall never will.” “Royall!” he exclaimed, in bewilderment; but she fluttered over Daisie’s sofa, cooing in her most gushing way: “My dear girl, may I kiss you? Royall told yesterday of his engagement to you, and that he was going all the way to New York to get a splendid diamond ring for you. We shall be cousins, you and I--and, I hope, great friends. Why--why, what is the matter? The girl is fainting!” Dallas had heard every word in surprise and horror, and suddenly he clutched the young widow’s arm in a steely grasp. “What nonsense are you talking to Daisie?” he exclaimed. “She is nothing to Royall! She has promised to marry me!” “Impossible, Mr. Bain, impossible; for only the night before last she accepted my cousin, and he has gone now to buy the most magnificent engagement ring in New York,” cried the young widow, in defiance and amazement at his claim. “He has lied to you! She belongs to me!” repeated Dallas hoarsely; and she answered: “Then she is a wretched little flirt, for she surely gave her promise to Royall. Ask her--see, she is reviving--and she cannot deny it.” He stooped down to look into the girl’s white face, his own just as pallid and startled, crying, with passionate incredulity: “Is it true, Daisie Bell? Are you indeed so false and wicked?” “Dallas! Oh, my love!” she sobbed, in strange affright, covering her face with her lily hands as if in shame. “Is it true? Are you engaged to him--to us both?” he thundered wrathfully. “Oh, Dallas, yes; but--but--hear me!” she wailed imploringly; but he threw off her hand as if it were a serpent, and rushed from the house. CHAPTER V. A CRUEL COQUETTE. A cry of the bitterest grief and yearning burst from Daisie’s lips as Dallas angrily shook off her hold and rushed from the house. “Oh, Dallas, my love, my darling, come back--come back, and I will explain everything!” She would have followed him, but as she sprang erect a terrible twinge of pain in her sprained ankle made her fall back on the sofa, sobbing with pain; and meanwhile Dallas Bain had rushed from the place in a dazed condition of mind, in which surprise, anger, and wounded love all blended in confusion. The feelings of the gay little widow, Mrs. Fleming, may better be imagined than described in finding out that the man she adored was madly in love with another. Grief, rage, and jealousy struggled in her mind, but she gave vent to neither, holding in her emotion firmly while she said, in a cold voice, to the sobbing girl: