ere
had been but a few words spoken between herself and Guy, and these in
the presence of others, but at their parting he had taken her soft
little hand in his and held it a moment, while he said, with a choking
voice: "God bless you, Daisy. I shall not forget your kindness to my
poor Julia, and if you should need--but no, that is too horrible to
think of; may God spare you that. Good-by."

And that was all that passed between him and Daisy with regard to the
haunting dread which sent her in a few days to her own house in New
York, where, if the thing she feared came upon her, she would at least
be at home and know she was not endangering the lives of others. But God
was good to her, and though there was a slight fever, with darting pains
in her back and a film before her eyes, it amounted to nothing worse,
and might have been the result of fatigue and over-excitement; and when
at Christmas time, yielding to the importunities of her little
namesake, there was a picture of herself in the box sent to
Cuylerville, the face which Guy scanned even more eagerly than his
daughter, was as smooth and fair and beautiful as when he saw it at
Saratoga, bending over his dying wife.

CHAPTER XIII

DAISY'S JOURNAL

NEW YORK, June 14, 18--.

To-morrow I am to take my old name of Thornton again, and be Guy's wife
once more. Nor does it seem strange at all that I should do so, for I
have never thought of myself as not belonging to him, even when I knew
he was another's. And yet when in that dreadful night at Saratoga I went
to Julia's room, there was in my heart no thought of this which has come
to me. I only wished to care for her and to be a help to Guy. I did not
think of her dying, and after she was dead there was not a thought of
the future in my mind until little Daisy put it there by asking if I
would be her mamma. Then I seemed to see it all, and expected it up to
the very day, six weeks ago, when Guy wrote to me: "Daisy, I want you.
Will you come to me again as my wife?"

I was not surprised. I knew he would say it some time, and I replied at
once, "Yes, Guy, I will."

He has been here since, and we have talked it over; all the past when I
made him so unhappy, and when I, too, was so wretched, though I did not
say much about that, or tell him of the dull, heavy, gnawing pain which,
sleeping or waking, I carried with me so long, and only lost when I
began to live for others. I did speak of the letter, and said I