The golden pane the setting sun doth just
Imblaze, which shows, till heaven comes down again,
All other lights but grades of gloom; her dark,
Long rolling locks were as a stream the slave
Might search for gold, and searching find._

FESTUS.

XII.

WHAT DAISY DID.

_The Arrest--Doubt and Love--Daisy and the Necklace--The Search--The
heart of Daisy Snarle._

In an upper room of a miserable, dingy house which faced the spot where the
old Brewery used to stand, Edward Walters sat one January evening reading
the _Express_. There was one paragraph among the city items which he had
read several times, and each reading seemed to strengthen a determination
which had, at the first perusal, grown up with him.

"Right or wrong, I'll do it!"

With which words he folded the paper, and placed it in his pocket.

Daisy, too, read the paragraph that night, and the blood rushed into her
cheeks, then left them very pale.

It was simply a police report--such as you read over your morning coffee,
without thinking how many hearts may be broken by the sight of that little
cluster of worn-out type. A young man, no name given, recently a clerk in
the house of Messrs. Flint & Snarle, had been arrested on the charge of
stealing a case of jewels from his employers.

Daisy, with dry eyes, read it again and again. Dark doubt and trusting love
were at conflict for a moment; for doubt had pride for its ally, and love
was only love. But the woman conquered. Mortimer, who had been arrested
early in the forenoon, found means to send Daisy a note, in which he simply
said--"I am charged with stealing the necklace, but I am as guiltless of
the crime as you, Daisy."

Mrs. Snarle came in the room while our little heroine held the note in her
hand.

"Mother," said Daisy, averting her head, "Mortimer will not come home
to-night."

With this she threw the note into the fire, and left Mrs. Snarle alone,
before the good lady asked any questions.

"That's very odd!" soliloquized Mrs. Snarle, briefly.

"You tell me that you are innocent," said Daisy, looking at a small
portrait of Mortimer which hung over the fire-place--"I do not question, I
only believe you!"

And then Daisy did a very strange thing, and yet it was very like Daisy.
She untied the brown ribbon which bound her dark lengths of hair, allowing
them to fall over her shoulders; then she braided the string of p