Stanwick, I want to be grateful to you--why will you torture me until
I hate you?"

"I will marry you this very day, Daisy Brooks, whether you hate me or
love me. I have done my best to gain your love. It will come in time;
I can wait for it."

"You will never make me love you," cried Daisy, covering her face with
her hands; "do not hope it--and the more you talk to me the less I
like you. I wish you would go away."

"I shall not despair," said Stanwick, with a confident smile. "I like
things which I find it hard to obtain--that was always one of my
characteristics--and I never liked you so well as I like you now, in
your defiant anger, and feel more determined than ever to make you my
own."

Suddenly a new thought occurred to him as he was about to turn from
her.

"Why, how stupid of me!" he cried. "I could not bring the parson here,
for they think you my wife already. I must change my plan materially
by taking you to the parsonage. We can go from here directly to the
station. I shall return in exactly fifteen minutes with a conveyance.
Remember, I warn you to make no outcry for protection in the meantime.
If you do I shall say you inherited your mother's malady. I am well
acquainted with your history, you see." He kissed his finger-tips to
her carelessly. "_Au revoir_, my love, but not farewell," he said,
lightly, "until we meet to be parted nevermore," and, with a quick,
springy step Lester Stanwick walked rapidly down the clover-bordered
path on his fatal errand.

In the distance the little babbling brook sung to her of peace and
rest beneath its curling, limpid waters.

"Oh, mother, mother," she cried, "what was the dark sorrow that
tortured your poor brain, till it drove you mad--ay, mad--ending in
death and despair? Why did you leave your little Daisy here to suffer
so? I feel such a throbbing in my own poor brain--but I must fly
anywhere, anywhere, to escape this new sorrow. God has forgotten me."
She took one step forward in a blind, groping, uncertain way. "My last
ray of hope has died out," she cried as the memory of his cruel words
came slowly back to her, so mockingly uttered--"the minister would be
none the wiser--he is blind."

CHAPTER XIV.

When Lester Stanwick returned to the cottage he found that quite an
unexpected turn of events had transpired. Miss Burton had gone out to
Daisy--she lay so still and lifeless in the long green grass.

"Heaven bless me!" she cried, in alarm, raisi