Chapter 27

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_ CHAPTER XXVII The months flew quickly by; the cold winter had slipped away, and the bright green grass and early violets were sprinkling the distant hill-slopes. The crimson-breasted robins were singing in the budding branches of the trees, and all Nature reminded one the glorious spring had come. Rex Lyon stood upon the porch of Whitestone Hall gazing up at the white, fleecy clouds that scudded over the blue sky, lost in deep thought. He was the same handsome, debonair Rex, but ah, how changed! The merry, laughing brown eyes looked silent and grave enough now, and the lips the drooping brown mustache covered rarely smiled. Even his voice seemed to have a deeper tone. He had done the one thing that morning which his mother had asked him to do with her dying breath--he had asked Pluma Hurlhurst to be his wife. The torture of the task seemed to grow upon him as the weeks rolled by, and in desperation he told himself he must settle the matter at once, or he would not have the strength to do it. He never once thought what he should do with his life after he married her. He tried to summon up courage to tell her the story of his marriage, that his hopes, his heart, and his love all lay in the grave of his young wife. Poor Rex, he could not lay bare that sweet, sad secret; he could not have borne her questions, her wonder, her remarks, and have lived; his dead love was far too sacred for that; he could not take the treasured love-story from his heart and hold it up to public gaze. It would have been easier for him to tear the living, beating heart from his breast than to do this. He had walked into the parlor that morning, where he knew he should find Pluma. She was standing before the fire. Although it was early spring the mornings were chilly, and a cheerful fire burned in the grate, throwing a bright, glowing radiance over the room and over the exquisite morning toilet of white cashmere, with its white lace frills, relieved here and there with coquettish dashes of scarlet blossoms, which Pluma wore, setting off her graceful figure to such queenly advantage. Rex looked at her, at the imperious beauty any man might have been proud to win, secretly hoping she would refuse him. "Good-morning, Rex," she said, holding out her white hands to him. "I am glad you have come to talk to me. I was watching you walking up and down under the trees, and you looked so lonely I half made up my mind to join you." A lovely color was deepening in her cheeks, and her eyes drooped shyly. He broke right into the subject at once while he had the courage to do it. "I have something to say to you, Pluma," he began, leading her to an adjacent sofa and seating himself beside her. "I want to ask you if you will be my wife." He looked perhaps the more confused of the two. "I will do my best to make you happy," he continued. "I can not say that I will make a model husband, but I will say I will do my best." There was a minute's silence, awkward enough for both. "You have asked me to be your wife, Rex, but you have not said one word of loving me." The remark was so unexpected Rex seemed for a few moments to be unable to reply to it. Looking at the eager, expectant face turned toward him, it appeared ungenerous and unkind not to give her one affectionate word. Yet he did not know how to say it; he had never spoken a loving word to any one except Daisy, his fair little child-bride. He tried hard to put the memory of Daisy away from him as he answered: "The question is so important that most probably I have thought more of it than of any words which should go with it." "Oh, that is it," returned Pluma, with a wistful little laugh. "Most men, when they ask women to marry them, say something of love, do they not?" "Yes," he replied, absently. "You have had no experience," laughed Pluma, archly. She was sorely disappointed. She had gone over in her own imagination this very scene a thousand times, of the supreme moment he would clasp his arms around her, telling her in glowing, passionate words how dearly he loved her and how wretched his life would be without her. He did nothing of the kind. Rex was thinking he would have given anything to have been able to make love to her--anything for the power of saying tender words--she looked so loving. Her dark, beautiful face was so near him, and her graceful figure so close, that he could have wound his arm around her, but he did not. In spite of every resolve, he thought of Daisy the whole time. How different that other love-making had been! How his heart throbbed, and every endearing name he could think of trembled on his lips, as he strained Daisy to his heart when she had bashfully consented to be his wife! That love-making was real substance; this one only the shadow of love. "You have not answered my question, Pluma. Will you be my wife?" Pluma raised her dark, beautiful face, radiant with the light of love, to his. "If I consent will you promise to love me better than anything else or any one in the wide world?" "I will devote my whole life to you, study your every wish," he answered, evasively. How was she to know he had given all his heart to Daisy? She held out her hands to him with a charming gesture of affection. He took them and kissed them; he could do neither more nor less. "I will be your wife, Rex," she said, with a tremulous, wistful sigh. "Thank you, Pluma," he returned, gently, bending down and kissing the beautiful crimson lips; "you shall never regret it. You are so kind, I am going to impose on your good nature. You have promised me you will be my wife--when may I claim you, Pluma?" "Do you wish it to be soon?" she asked, hesitatingly, wondering how he would answer her. "Yes," he said, absently; "the sooner it is over the better I shall be pleased." She looked up into his face, at a loss how to interpret the words. "You shall set the day, Rex," she replied. "I have your father's consent that it may take place just as soon as possible, in case you promised to marry me," he said. "Suppose it takes place in a fortnight, say--will that be too soon for you?" She gave a little scream of surprise. "As soon as that?" she murmured; but ended by readily consenting. He thanked her and kissed her once more. After a few quiet words they parted--she, happy in the glamour of her love-dream; he, praying to Heaven from the depths of his miserable heart, to give him strength to carry out the rash vow which had been wrung from his unwilling lips. In his heart Rex knew no one but Daisy could ever reign. Dead, he was devoted to her memory. His life was narrowing down. He was all kindness, consideration and devotion; but the one supreme magnet of all--love--was wanting. In vain Pluma exerted all her wondrous powers of fascination to win him more completely. How little he dreamed of the depths of love which controlled that passionate heart, every throb of which was for him--that to have won from him one token of warm affection she would have given all she held dear in this world. "How does it happen, Rex," she asked, one evening, "you have not asked me to sing to you since you have asked me to be your wife? Music used to be such a bond of sympathy between us." There was both love and reproach in her voice. He heard neither. He had simply forgotten it. "I have been thinking of other things, I presume. Allow me to make up for it at once, however, by asking you if you will sing for me now." The tears came to her dark, flashing eyes, but she forced them bravely back. She had hoped he would clasp her in his arms, whispering some sweet compliment, then say to her "Darling, won't you sing to me now?" She swept toward the piano with the air of a queen. "I want you to sit where I can see you, Rex," she demanded, prettily; "I like to watch your face when I sing you my favorite songs." Rex drew his chair up close to the piano, laying his head back dreamily against the crimson cushions. He would not be obliged to talk; for once--just once--he would let his fancies roam where they would. He had often heard Pluma sing before, but never in the way she sung to-night. A low, thrilling, seductive voice full of pleading, passionate tenderness--a voice that whispered of the sweet irresistible power of love, that carried away the hearts of her listeners as a strong current carries a leaflet. Was it a dream, or was it the night wind breathing the name of Daisy? The tears rose in his eyes, and he started to his feet, pale and trembling with agitation. Suddenly the music ceased. "I did not think such a simple little melody had power to move you," she said. "Is it a new song?" he asked. "I do not remember having heard it before. What is the title of it?" He did not notice her face had grown slightly pale under the soft, pearly light of the gleaming lamps, as she held the music out toward him. "It is a pretty title," she said, in her low, musical voice, "'Daisies Growing o'er my Darling's Grave.'" In the terrible look of agony that swept over his handsome face, Pluma read the secret of his life; the one secret she had dreaded stood as clearly revealed to her as though it had been stamped in glowing letters upon his brow. She would have stood little chance of being Rex's wife if Daisy Brooks had lived. Who would have dreamed the beautiful, proud young heiress could have cursed the very memory of the young girl whom she believed to be dead--lying all uncared for in a neglected, lonely grave? Rex felt sorely disturbed. He never remembered how the remainder of the evening passed. Ah, heavens! how his mind wandered back to that sweet love-dream so cruelly broken. A mist as of tears spread before his eyes, and shut the whole world from him as he glanced out of the window and up at the star-gemmed sky--that was his Daisy's home. "I hope my little song has not cast a gloom over you, Rex?" she said, holding out her hands to him as she arose to bid him good-night--those small white hands upon one of which his engagement-ring glowed with a thousand prismatic hues. "Why should it?" he asked, attempting to laugh lightly. "I admired it perhaps more than any other I have ever heard you sing." Pluma well knew why. "It was suggested to me by a strange occurrence. Shall I relate it to you, Rex?" He made some indistinct answer, little dreaming of how wofully the little anecdote would affect him. "I do not like to bring up old, unpleasant subjects, Rex. But do you remember what the only quarrel we ever had was about, or rather who it was about?" He looked at her in surprise; he had not the least idea of what she alluded to. "Do you remember what a romantic interest you once took in our overseer's niece--the one who eloped with Lester Stanwick from boarding-school--the one whose death we afterward read of? Her name was Daisy--Daisy Brooks." If she had suddenly plunged a dagger into his heart with her white jeweled hands he could not have been more cruelly startled. He could have cried aloud with the sharp pain of unutterable anguish that memory brought him. His answer was a bow; he dared not look up lest the haggard pain of his face should betray him. "Her uncle (he was no relation, I believe, but she called him that) was more fond of her than words can express. I was driving along by an unfrequented road to-day when I came across a strange, pathetic sight. The poor old man was putting the last touches to a plain wooden cross he had just erected under a magnolia-tree, which bore the simple words: 'To the memory of Daisy Brooks, aged sixteen years.' Around the cross the grass was thickly sown with daisies. "'She does not rest here,' the old man said, drawing his rough sleeve across his tear-dimmed eyes; 'but the poor little girl loved this spot best of any.'" Pluma wondered why Rex took her just then in his arms for the first time and kissed her. He was thanking her in his heart; he could have knelt to her for the kind way she had spoken of Daisy. A little later he was standing by the open window of his own room in the moonlight. "My God!" he cried, burying his face in his hands, "this poor John Brooks did what I, her husband, should have done; but it is not too late now. I shall honor your memory, my darling; I shall have a costly marble monument erected to your memory, bearing the inscription: 'Sacred to the memory of Daisy, beloved wife of Rex Lyon, aged sixteen years.' Not Daisy Brooks, but Daisy Lyon. Mother is dead, what can secrecy avail now?" He would not tell Pluma until the last moment. Straightway he ordered a magnificent monument from Baltimore--one of pure unblemished white, with an angel with drooping wings overlooking the tall white pillar. When it arrived he meant to take Pluma there, and, reverently kneeling down before her, tell her all the story of his sweet, sad love-dream with his face pressed close against the cold, pulseless marble--tell her of the love-dream which had left him but the ashes of dead hope. He sealed the letter and placed it with the out-going morning mail. "Darling, how I wish I had not parted from you that night!" he sighed. How bitterly he regretted he could not live that one brief hour of his past life over again--how differently he would act! _

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