Daisy Brooks: or, A Perilous Love

A low moan she could scarcely repress broke from her lips. A handsomely dressed child, who was rolling a hoop in front of her, turned around suddenly and asked her if she was ill.

“Ill?” She repeated the word with a vague feeling of wonder. What was physical pain to the torture that was eating away her young life? Ill? Why, all the illness in the world put together could not cause the anguish she was suffering then–the sting of a broken heart.

She was not ill–only desolate and forsaken.

Poor Daisy answered in such a vague manner that she quite frightened the child, who hurried away as fast as she could with her hoop, pausing now and then to look back at the white, forlorn face on which the sunshine seemed to cast such strange shadows.

On and on Daisy walked, little heeding which way she went. She saw what appeared to be a park on ahead, and there she bent her steps. The shady seats among the cool green grasses under the leafy trees looked inviting. She opened the gate and entered. A sudden sense of dizziness stole over her, and her breath seemed to come in quick, convulsive gasps.

“Perhaps God has heard my prayer, Rex, my love,” she sighed. “I am sick and weary unto death. Oh, Rex–Rex–”

The beautiful eyelids fluttered over the soft, blue eyes, and with that dearly loved name on her lips, the poor little child-bride sunk down on the cold, hard earth in a death-like swoon.

“Oh, dear me, Harvey, who in the world is this?” cried a little, pleasant-voiced old lady, who had witnessed the young girl enter the gate, and saw her stagger and fall. In a moment she had fluttered down the path, and was kneeling by Daisy’s side.

“Come here, Harvey,” she called; “it is a young girl; she has fainted.”

Mr. Harvey Tudor, the celebrated detective, threw away the cigar he had been smoking, and hastened to his wife’s side.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” cried the little lady, in ecstasy. “I wonder who she is, and what she wanted.”

“She is evidently a stranger, and called to consult me professionally,” responded Mr. Tudor; “she must be brought into the house.”

He lifted the slight, delicate figure in his arms, and bore her into the house.

“I am going down to the office now, my dear,” he said; “we have some important cases to look after this morning. I will take a run up in the course of an hour or so. If the young girl should recover and wish to see me very particularly, I suppose you will have to send for me. Don’t get me away up here unless you find out the case is imperative.”

And with a good-humored nod, the shrewd detective, so quiet and domesticated at his own fireside, walked quickly down the path to the gate, whistling softly to himself–thinking with a strange, puzzled expression in his keen blue eyes, of Daisy. Through all of his business transactions that morning the beautiful, childish face was strangely before his mind’s eye.

“Confound it!” he muttered, seizing his hat, “I must hurry home and find out at once who that pretty little creature is–and what she wants.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

The sunny summer days came and went, lengthening themselves into long weeks before Daisy Brooks opened her eyes to consciousness. No clew could be found as to who the beautiful young stranger was.

Mr. Tudor had proposed sending her to the hospital–but to this proposition his wife would not listen.

“No, indeed, Harvey,” she exclaimed, twisting the soft, golden curls over her white fingers, “she shall stay here where I can watch over her myself, poor little dear.”

“You amaze me, my dear,” expostulated her husband, mildly. “You can not tell who you may be harboring.”

“Now, Harvey,” exclaimed the little woman, bending over the beautiful, still, white face resting against the crimson satin pillow, “don’t insinuate there could be anything wrong with this poor child. My woman’s judgment tells me she is as pure as those lilies in yonder fountain’s bed.”

“If you had seen as much of the world as I have, my dear, you would take little stock in the innocence of beautiful women; very homely women are rarely dangerous.”

“There is no use in arguing the point, Harvey. I have determined she shall not be sent to the hospital, and she shall stay here.”

Mrs. Tudor carried the point, as she always did in every argument.

“Well, my dear, if any ill consequences arise from this piece of folly of yours, remember, I shirk all responsibility.”

“‘When a woman will, she will, you may depend on’t,
And when she won’t–she won’t, and there’s an end on’t,’”

he quoted, dryly. “I sincerely hope you will not rue it.”

“Now, you would be surprised, my dear, to find out at some future time you had been entertaining an angel unawares.”

“I should be extremely surprised; you have put it mildly, my dear–nay, I may say dumbfounded–to find an angel dwelling down here below among us sinners. My experience has led me to believe the best place for angels is up above where they belong. I am glad that you have such pretty little notions, though, my dear. It is not best for women to know too much of the ways of the world.”

“Harvey, you shock me!” cried the little lady, holding up her hands in horror at her liege lord’s remarks.

Still she had her own way in the matter, and Daisy stayed.

Every day the detective grew more mystified as to who in the world she could be. One thing was certain, she had seen some great trouble which bid fair to dethrone her reason.

At times she would clasp his hands, calling him Uncle John, begging him piteously to tell her how she could die. And she talked incoherently, too, of a dark, handsome woman’s face, that had come between her and some lost treasure.

Then a grave look would come into the detective’s face. He had seen many such cases, and they always ended badly, he said to himself. She had such an innocent face, so fair, so childish, he could not make up his mind whether she was sinned against or had been guilty of a hidden sin herself.

Love must have something to do with it, he thought, grimly. Whenever he saw such a hopeless, despairing look on a young and beautiful face he always set it down as a love case in his own mind, and in nine cases out of ten he was right.

“Ah! it is the old, old story,” he muttered. “A pretty, romantic school-girl, and some handsome, reckless lover,” and something very much like an imprecation broke from his lips, thorough man of the world though he was, as he ruminated on the wickedness of men.

Two days before the marriage of Rex and Pluma was to be solemnized, poor little Daisy awoke to consciousness, her blue eyes resting on the joyous face of Mrs. Tudor, who bent over her with bated breath, gazing into the upraised eyes, turned so wonderingly upon her.

“You are to keep perfectly quiet, my dear,” said Mrs. Tudor, pleasantly, laying her hands on Daisy’s lips as she attempted to speak. “You must not try to talk or to think; turn your face from the light, and go quietly to sleep for a bit, then you shall say what you please.”

Daisy wondered who the lady was, as she obeyed her like an obedient, tired child–the voice seemed so motherly, so kind, and so soothing, as she lay there, trying to realize how she came there. Slowly all her senses struggled into life, her memory came back, her mind and brain grew clear. Then she remembered walking into the cool, shady garden, and the dizziness which seemed to fall over her so suddenly. “I must have fainted last night,” she thought. She also remembered Pluma bending so caressingly over her young husband in the moonlight, and that the sight had almost driven her mad, and, despite her efforts to suppress her emotion, she began to sob aloud.

Mrs. Tudor hurried quickly to the bedside. She saw at once the ice from the frozen fountain of memory had melted.

“If you have any great sorrow on your mind, my dear, and wish to see Mr. Tudor, I will call him at once. He is in the parlor.”

“Please don’t,” sobbed Daisy. “I don’t want to see anybody. I must go home to Uncle John at once. Have I been here all night?”

“Why, bless your dear little heart, you have been here many a night and many a week. We thought at one time you would surely die.”

“I wish I had,” moaned Daisy. In the bitterness of her sorely wounded heart she said to herself that Providence had done everything for her without taking her life.

“We thought,” pursued Mrs. Tudor, gently, “that perhaps you desired to see my husband–he is a detective–upon some matter. You fainted when you were just within the gate.”

“Was it your garden?” asked Daisy, surprisedly. “I thought it was a park!”

“Then you were not in search of Mr. Tudor, my dear?” asked his wife, quite mystified.

“No,” replied Daisy. “I wanted to get away from every one who knew me, or every one I knew, except Uncle John.”

“I shall not question her concerning herself to-day,” Mrs. Tudor thought. “I will wait a bit until she is stronger.” She felt delicate about even asking her name. “She will seek my confidence soon,” she thought. “I must wait.”