Chapter 1

Young Mrs. Fielding opened her dark, heavy-lidded eyes and gazed
thoughtfully about the large, luxurious chamber, from which every ray
of sunshine had been carefully excluded. As her eyes became accustomed
to the subdued light she saw a fat old negro woman, in a white cap and
apron, dozing placidly in a large rocking-chair.

"Nurse! nurse!" she cried.

"Hi, honey!" and the sleeper wakened with a start, and waddled up to
the bed, with a broad smile on her dark visage.

"Have I been asleep, nurse? I feel so strange! I seem to remember that
I was sick, and the doctor was here--"

Her faltering words were interrupted by a low chuckle of satisfaction
from the old woman.

"Guess de doctor _was_ here! Guess he put you to sleep, too; 'case how,
he said, no use you suff'rin' sech cruel pains. Hi, honey! what you
reckin? Your trouble all pas' now, and you de happy mudder o' two de
beautifules' twins dat I eber sot my ole eyes on!"

As the excitable old woman blurted out her joyful news, Mrs. Fielding's
head sunk back heavily on the lace-trimmed pillow.

"Oh!" she cried, with a deep sigh of relief and joy.

"Oh, indeed!" echoed the proud old nurse; and she waddled across to the
large double crib and produced two tiny infants, which she carried to
the bedside on a pillow. Mrs. Fielding looked up eagerly, and a low cry
of delight broke from her lips.

"What little beauties! Look--they are opening their eyes! Oh, one has
blue eyes like my husband's, and one has dark eyes like mine! Are they
girls or boys, nurse?"

"Bofe gals!" replied the old woman, with a grunt of dissatisfaction.

"And I wanted a boy so much!" the young mother exclaimed, with a sigh;
then, rallying from her disappointment: "But never mind, nurse; better
luck next time. And, after all, it is perfectly lovely to have twin
girls! They always create a sensation wherever they go. And I mean to
give them such fancy names! Guess, nurse."

"Mary and Marthy, maybe, honey."

"Pshaw!" disgustedly. "Nothing of the kind! Wait--don't take the
darlings away yet."

"But you am talkin' too much, missie."

"I'll be quiet in a minute. Look, nurse"--she put out a beautiful white
hand and touched each of the babes in turn--"this dark one I'll name
Jewel, this blue-eyed one Flower."

"Redikilous! I don't belebe dat Massa Charlie will 'low it," muttered
the old woman; and Mrs. Fielding's eyes flashed angrily.

"I shall do as I please with my own babies!" she cried, imperiously.

"All right, honey. In course you'll do as you please--you al'ays does,"
was the soothing response; and then the old woman carried the twins
back to their crib, adding, wisely: "'Tis a good sign to see sick
people cross--dey's 'most sure to git well. Guess I'll ring de bell and
hab some gruel fotched up fo' her."

But, in the very act of ringing the bell, her hand dropped to her side,
her dark face turned ashen, and a groan forced its way through her
lips.

A dreadful sound had broken the stillness of the sick-chamber--the
low, muffled toll of the Tillage church-bell, telling of an impending
funeral.

The beautiful dark face on the pillow lost its proud smile in a minute,
and grew pale with awe.

"Who is dead?" she asked, with a little shiver; but old Maria did not
answer for a moment, and again that low, muffled toll of the bell
struck heavily upon the silence of the room.

Mrs. Fielding repeated her question a little impatiently, adding,
wonderingly:

"I did not know that any one was sick in the village."

"I--I--must fotch your gruel, ma'am," cried old Maria; and she waddled
precipitately out of the room, leaving Mrs. Fielding very much puzzled
over her old servant's deafness.

She lay silent on her pillow, counting those dull, muffled strokes
curiously, and thinking to herself:

"They might have been for me. Oh, how glad I am that my trouble is over
and I am still alive!"

The bell had ceased to toll when Maria came back, with that ashen look
still on her face, carrying the bowl of gruel somewhat unsteadily.

Mrs. Fielding waited until she finished her light repast, then said:

"I counted the strokes, Maria, and there were just nineteen. So it is
a young person whom they are going to bury. Now, tell me at once who
it is; you need not be afraid of agitating me. Even if it is one of my
friends, I will bear it calmly."

"Ay, Lord!" muttered the old nurse, with a grimace hidden behind her
hand. Then she gave Mrs. Fielding a strange look. "Ma'am, it's none o'
your friends at all, ma'am--only a poor young gal by the name o' Daisy
Forrest."

A low cry shrilled through the room, and old Maria shuddered at the
strange sound, it was so distinctly malicious, so frankly glad.

"Ma'am!" she uttered, indignantly; and Mrs. Fielding half raised
herself on her pillow, and exclaimed:

"Daisy Forrest dead! My rival dead! Ah, that is glorious news!"

Maria's old black face turned gray with indignant emotion.

"Hush, missie! You ought to be afraid to talk so. De good Lord might
punish your hardness of heart."

"Hold your tongue, Maria! You know I hated that woman. You know that
she was my rival--that she held my husband's heart--yet you ask me not
to be glad she is dead!"

Her black eyes blazed luridly, and her pale, beautiful face writhed
with jealousy, as, almost breathless, she fell back upon her pillow,
and Maria hurriedly seized a bottle of camphor and began to bathe her
brow and hands.

"Honey, you knowed all dis afore you married my young master; so, what
for you want to take on so now?" she whimpered, reproachfully.

"Yes, I knew it all; but they told me that it was the way of young men
to be wild before marriage--that he would cast her off when he became
my husband, and hate her very memory. But it was false; he loved that
wicked, fallen creature best always. He would breathe her name in his
sleep as he lay by my side. He visited her still--"

"No, no, missie; dat pore gal not so bad as dat! She nebber 'low him to
come no more arter he married you," interrupted Maria.

"I tell you he did go, Maria! I followed him once, dressed in boy's
clothes. He went in, and I heard him swearing that he loved her more
than ever, and--and--" Her voice choked with fury a moment; then she
continued, wildly: "Dead, thank Heaven--dead, and out of my way
forever! Now he will be all my own! But it was very sudden, was it not,
Maria?"

"Very suddint, missie," the old woman answered, sullenly. "Dere was a
leetle baby born night afore last, and de mudder died afore morning."

"A baby born! My husband's, of course!" the sick woman cried,
furiously; and it seemed as if her jealous passion would kill her, so
terrible was the expression that distorted her beautiful face as Maria
replied, in her sullen way:

"I ain't gwine to deny dat, missie, for dat 'ud make de dead gal seem
worser dan she wer', and I ain't gwine to frow no mo' sin an' shame dan
possible on dat pore thing layin' in her coffin wid her baby on her
breast."

"So the miserable offspring of shame died, too. That is good! I hate
it with the same hate I had for its mother!" the infuriated, maddened
woman cried out, remorselessly; but before Maria could utter a single
remonstrance, another sound, and one more startling than the solemn
funeral-bell, broke upon their ears.

It was the loud reverberation of a pistol-shot within the house.

"Oh! what was that?" shrieked Mrs. Fielding, in terror.

Old Maria did not reply. She was waddling out of the room as fast as
her age and obesity would permit. Obeying an unerring instinct, she
made her way to the library, and flinging wide the door, crossed the
threshold.

Then--

"Oh, Massa Charlie! Oh, my pore boy!" she cried out, in an agony of
grief.

He was lying on the floor--her nurse-child--her young master, on whom
she doted with true motherly love. His white, extended hand grasped
the small pistol that had sent that deadly bullet into the breast from
which that ghastly torrent was pouring. His magnificent form lay
rigid; his head, with its short, fair locks, was thrown backward, and
the blue eyes, with their luring, fatal beauty, were fixed in a dying
stare.

She dropped down on her knees--his poor old black mammy--and tried to
stanch the torrent of blood with the ample folds of her skirt, while
heart-rending groans burst from her lips.

"Mammy!" he uttered, faintly.

"Massa Charlie--darlin'!" she groaned.

"You heard her funeral-bell? How could I live with her death upon my
soul? Oh, my little Daisy, my love, I broke your heart, and this is my
atonement!" he moaned faintly, remorsefully.

"Massa Charlie, you should have t'ought of her a-lyin' in yonder wid
her babies."

"Ah, mammy, I did, I did! but I was false to her, too. I am not fit
to live. I--I ruined those two women's lives with my villainy! I
rushed headlong into sin, but I never dreamed of what was coming to me
to-day. I thought I could go on in my evil ways, but God has punished
me. Mammy, do you think I could live when _she_ is gone out of the
world--she whom I loved so fondly yet so selfishly?"

"But, Massa Charlie--"

"Yes, I know. I ought to have been true to her. I was weak, unworthy,
full of ambition. I let gold and high position lure me from her side. I
was false alike to her I loved and to her I could not love. Remorse has
fastened its fangs in my heart, and I must die. If I lived, she would
haunt me! How can she rest with _that_ upon her breast?"

"Oh, my poor boy! my poor boy! Let me sen' for de preacher."

"No, mammy; the preacher could not save me now, after what I have done.
Mammy, pray sometimes for my poor, lost soul--the coward soul, too weak
to do right, yet not brave enough to bear the ills it wrought. Will
prayers do any good then, I wonder? Ah--Daisy--love--wife!"

A gasp, and the erring soul had fled.

Maria's groan rose simultaneously with a terrible cry.

Mrs. Fielding had dragged herself to the library and heard all. She
spurned the dead body with her foot.

"He died with her name upon his lips," she hissed, "and I am his wedded
wife!"