“You have only yourself to blame, girl! I brought you up to shun rich young men; I told you they had no use for poor girls but to wreck their lives. You would not believe what I told you, you laughed at my warnings, and fled with the villain that ruined you. Now you have returned to drag out a wretched existence under the ban of scorn, while he goes scot-free and weds another!” The wretched _Daisy_ knew that it was all true. She shut herself into her room, and brooded over her trouble till her brain went wild. In the evening she came down to her mother, calm with the calmness of a great despair. “I have thought it all over, dear mother,” she said gently. “I did wrong to come back to you in my trouble; because you warned me and I would not listen. So I have no right to stay here and cloud your life with my shame and sorrow. I am going away forever. Good-by, dear mother. Say that you forgive me before I die!” “What do you mean, child? Where are you going? What is this wild talk of dying? Come back, _Daisy_; mother will forgive you,” cried the poor mother, but _Daisy_ had fled through the door out into the cold moonlight, shining on a world that was white with snow. “I must follow and bring her back. I scolded her too harshly,” the mother cried, snatching her bonnet and hastening after her child. But her poor, rheumatic limbs could not keep pace with _Daisy’s_ flying feet. She could not overtake her in time to prevent the tragedy. The bridal cortège was moving out from the gates of the hall, and some little children belonging to the tenant were throwing flowers in front of the bridal carriage as it started toward the church where the fashionable throng was waiting. The clear moonlight and lamplight showed _Chester’s_ face plain as day, as he sat by the side of the bride. With a cry of reproach and despair that shrilled to heaven, _Daisy_ darted into the road, and flung herself under the horses’ feet. But _Chester_, sitting there, pale and handsome, on his way to his wedding, had seen that lovely face upraised to heaven as she darted forward, had heard that terrible cry, and it pierced his false heart like an arrow. He gave an answering cry, and tearing open the carriage door, as the vehicle swayed under the driver’s frantic efforts to throw the horses back on their haunches, he sprang out and strove to tear _Daisy_ from under their desperate hoofs. The maddened animals dragged the reins from the driver’s hands, and their steel-clad hoofs came down with a dull thud upon _Chester’s_ and _Daisy’s_ bodies as they writhed on the ground. It all passed more quickly than one could describe it, and almost before the people in the next carriage knew that anything was happening the ill-fated pair were drawn from their terrible position, crushed and dying. The frightened bride, reckless of her white gown and slippers, sprang out into the snow. “Oh, what has happened?” she cried, in wild alarm.