"Mamma did not tell her for a long time, and when Flower heard it at last she went almost as mad as poor mamma, and vowed she would drown herself. Oh, Mr. Meredith, you can not think how dreadful it all was!" sobbed Jewel, desolately. He made no comment. He could not speak after the dreadful story she had been telling him. He only lay and listened in dumb horror. Jewel recovered herself, and continued: "There was mamma, raving mad, and at last they had to take her to the asylum. As for Flower, she fell ill, and tried again and again to take her own life. I had to watch her always to prevent her going to the sea and throwing herself in. You see, Mr. Meredith, she was my half-sister, and I could not help but love her in spite of her birth and of our father's sin. So I did not tell any one our dreadful secret, I only loved poor Flower the more, and in her sickness I tended her carefully until that awful night when I thought her dead, and rushed down-stairs to call for help. Then she revived, got out of the house, and drowned herself." "Her body--was it ever recovered?" he asked, and Jewel replied: "No; but we are certain she drowned herself, because some of her garments were found on the sea-shore." "It is terrible!" he groaned, and looking keenly at her pale face, he asked: "Did Flower leave any papers, any letters, Jewel, that told you anything strange?" "No," she answered, unblushingly; and he reflected that it would be no use to tell her that Flower had been his wife. She was dead, poor little darling; but he thanked Heaven that the misery that had driven her to suicide was at least none of his making. "But, ah, if she had only come with me she would probably never have heard the shameful secret of her birth," he thought; and it seemed to him now that he understood Mrs. Fielding's object in refusing to let her daughters marry any one. "She was very honorable. She was not willing that Flower's story should be known, yet she could not give her to any one who was ignorant of it," he thought, feeling an accession of pity and respect for the woman who had been so deeply wronged, yet who had remained so honest and conscientious. Presently Jewel murmured something about nourishment, and glided lightly from the room. He closed his eyes and lay thinking of the strange story she had told him, and of his poor, blighted little Flower, who had gone to her death rather than endure the bitter shame that had come to her with the knowledge of her birth. The deep regret that she had not gone away with him last summer pierced his heart so bitterly that fever set in again, and he had a relapse that came near costing him his life. CHAPTER XXII. When Laurie Meredith was well enough to go away again, the summer was more than half gone, and he felt that he owed a debt of gratitude to Jewel Fielding for her hospitality and friendliness that he knew not how to pay, since she refused money, and there was nothing else that he could give.