A step in the hall startled her, and she sprung up just as the door opened, and her companion, an elderly widow lady, entered the parlor. "Oh, Mrs. Wellings!" exclaimed Jewel, wildly, and the lady screamed as she saw the apparently dead man on the floor. As soon as she could speak she began to question Jewel volubly, and the girl explained that he was a friend of hers, and had dropped like that on entering the room. A physician was hastily summoned, and it was found that Laurie Meredith was not dead. He soon revived, but he had received such a shock that weeks of illness followed, and Jewel declared that he must not be moved from the house. There was plenty of room. The doctor could send an experienced nurse, she said, and she and Mrs. Wellings would do all they could. So it followed, that when Laurie Meredith first opened his eyes, after weeks of delirium, with a conscious gaze they fell on Jewel sitting by his bed, looking exquisitely charming in a long white tea-gown with crimson silk facings, and some crimson rosebuds in her braided hair. He looked at her bewilderedly at first, then a memory of the past began to dawn on him, and he asked her if he had been sick. "Yes, with brain-fever, for nearly three weeks, but you are better now," Jewel replied, in a sweet, gentle voice that thrilled him in spite of himself, for it sounded something like Flower's as it had whispered to him of her love last summer. He closed his eyes a few moments, and when he opened them again he remembered all. "Oh, Heaven! I remember all now," he moaned, "You told me that my darling was dead." "Yes," she said, in a soft, sweet tone, "Flower is dead--poor, unfortunate girl--but I would not have broken it to you so abruptly if I had known that you would take it so hard." "You knew I loved her, Jewel," he said, looking keenly into the beautiful, sparkling face. "Yes, once," she replied; "but I thought it had all blown over long ago. Mamma refused her consent, and then you went away. I thought you had forgotten it, as Flower did very soon." "No, no, she did not forget, Jewel!" he groaned; then paused, remembering that Jewel could not be expected to know anything of that secret marriage and their correspondence. Presently he said, mournfully: "She is dead--beautiful Flower is dead! How long ago was it, Jewel?" She named the day when Flower had run away, and added: "She committed suicide. She drowned herself in the sea." She feared he would faint again, so awful was the pallor that overspread his face, so she cried out, hastily: "But it was not her love for you that drove her to despair, but her shame and grief at finding out the secret of her parentage." And she went on to tell him of the secret old Maria had revealed on her death-bed, and which had driven her mother mad at last, and caused Flower to drown herself.