Pretty Geraldine, the New York Salesgirl; or, Wedded to Her Choice
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Title: Pretty Geraldine, the New York Salesgirl; or, Wedded to Her Choice
Author: Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY GERALDINE, THE NEW YORK SALESGIRL; OR, WEDDED TO HER CHOICE ***
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No. 34
10 Cents
PRETTY GERALDINE
by
MRS. ALEX McVEIGH MILLER
[Illustration: EAGLE LIBRARY]
STREET & SMITH NEW YORK
All Stories Copyrighted. Cannot be had in any other edition
* * * * * *
EAGLE LIBRARY
A weekly publication devoted to good literature
By subscription $5 per year. Oct. 18, 1891.
Entered as second-class matter at N. Y. post-office.
NO. 34
THE MOST POPULAR SERIES OF NOVELS PUBLISHED
STREET &
SMITH'S
EAGLE LIBRARY
Of 12mo. Copyrighted Books
RETAIL PRICE, 10 CENTS.
[Illustration]
Paper and printing equal to any 25 cent series on the market. Handsome
and Attractive Cover of different design for each issue.
[Illustration]
CATALOGUE
=30--Baron Sam. By the author of Dr. Jack.=
=29--Theodora. By Victorien Sardou.=
=28--Miss Caprice. By the author of Dr. Jack.=
=27--Estelle's Millionaire Lover. By Julia Edwards.=
26--Captain Tom. By the author of Dr. Jack.
25--Little Southern Beauty. By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
24--A Wasted Love. By Charles Garvice.
23--Miss Pauline of New York. By the author of Dr. Jack.
22--Elaine. By Charles Garvice.
21--A Heart's Idol. By Bertha M. Clay.
20--The Senator's Bride. By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
19--Mr. Lake of Chicago. By Harry DuBois Milman.
18--Dr. Jack's Wife. By St. George Rathborne.
17--Leslie's Loyalty. By Charles Garvice.
16--The Fatal Card. By Haddon Chambers and B. C. Stephenson.
15--Dr. Jack. By St. George Rathborne.
14--Violet Lisle. By Bertha M. Clay.
13--The Little Widow. By Julia Edwards.
12--Edrie's Legacy. By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon.
11--The Gypsy's Daughter. By Bertha M. Clay.
10--Little Sunshine. By Francis S. Smith.
9--The Virginia Heiress. By May Agnes Fleming.
8--Beautiful but Poor. By Julia Edwards.
7--Two Keys. By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon.
6--The Midnight Marriage. By A. M. Douglas.
5--The Senator's Favorite. Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.
4--For a Woman's Honor. By Bertha M. Clay.
3--He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. By Julia Edwards.
2--Ruby's Reward. By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon.
1--Queen Bess. By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon.
THESE BOOKS CAN BE HAD IN NO OTHER SERIES
* * * * * *
PRETTY GERALDINE.
By MRS. ALEX. M'VEIGH MILLER.
* * * * * *
POPULAR NOVELS
--IN--
THE EAGLE LIBRARY
BY
The Author of Dr. Jack
PUBLISHED BY STREET & SMITH
DR. JACK
DR. JACK'S WIFE
MISS PAULINE OF NEW YORK
CAPTAIN TOM
MISS CAPRICE
BARON SAM
MONSIEUR BOB
THE COLONEL BY BREVET
MAJOR MATTERSON OF KENTUCKY
MRS. BOB
THE GREAT MOGUL
FOR SALE EVERYWHERE.
* * * * * *
PRETTY GERALDINE, THE NEW YORK SALESGIRL;
Or,
Wedded to Her Choice.
by
MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER,
Author of "Little Coquette Bonnie," "The Senator's Bride," "Brunette
and Blonde," "Rosamond," "The Senator's Favorite,"
"A Little Southern Beauty," "Sweet Violet,"
"Dora Tenney," Etc., Etc., Etc.
[Illustration]
New York:
Street & Smith, Publishers,
29 Rose Street.
Copyrighted 1895 by STREET & SMITH.
PRETTY GERALDINE,
THE NEW YORK SALESGIRL
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. ON THE THRESHOLD OF HER FATE.
CHAPTER II. A FRIEND IN NEED.
CHAPTER III. A GALLANT RESCUE.
CHAPTER IV. "TWO SOULS WITH BUT A SINGLE THOUGHT."
CHAPTER V. RIVALS AND FOES.
CHAPTER VI. FORTUNE, THAT FICKLE GODDESS, FAVORS STANDISH.
CHAPTER VII. THE POWER OF LOVE.
CHAPTER VIII. "A GIRL HAS A RIGHT TO CHANGE HER MIND."
CHAPTER IX. THE ACTOR MAKES HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES.
CHAPTER X. A CRUEL DISAPPOINTMENT.
CHAPTER XI. A CRUSHING SORROW.
CHAPTER XII. THE LETTER THAT NEVER CAME.
CHAPTER XIII. TORTURED TO MADNESS.
CHAPTER XIV. A THEATRE PARTY.
CHAPTER XV. GERALDINE WOULD NEVER FORGET ALDERSON.
CHAPTER XVI. "CALL PRIDE TO YOUR AID, GERALDINE."
CHAPTER XVII. AT THE END OF THE PLAY.
CHAPTER XVIII. REUNION.
CHAPTER XIX. MUTUAL LOVE.
CHAPTER XX. "LOVE IS THE BEST OF ALL."
CHAPTER XXI. "OH, GERALDINE, I'LL HAVE TO TELL YOU MY GUARDED
SECRET!"
CHAPTER XXII. "THAT WOMAN SHALL PAY DEARLY FOR THIS!"
CHAPTER XXIII. CISSY'S SECRET.
CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE POWER OF A FIEND.
CHAPTER XXV. UNDER SUSPICION.
CHAPTER XXVI. TOO LATE! TOO LATE.
CHAPTER XXVII. HAWTHORNE CLUNG TO HOPE, IN SPITE OF HIS TROUBLE.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THAT WORD WAS LIKE A DAGGER IN HER HEART.
CHAPTER XXIX. A LEAF OUT OF HIS OWN BOOK.
CHAPTER XXX. A STARTLING DECLARATION.
CHAPTER XXXI. FROM WANT TO WEALTH.
CHAPTER XXXII. "YOU WILL SOON FORGET YOUR POOR LOVER IN THE NEW
SPHERE THAT YOU WILL FILL."
CHAPTER XXXIII. CLIFFORD STANDISH TRIES TO CREATE A GRAND IMPRESSION.
CHAPTER XXXIV. ENEMIES AT BAY.
CHAPTER XXXV. GERALDINE'S CHOICE.
CHAPTER XXXVI. GERALDINE'S DEFIANCE.
CHAPTER XXXVII. "A WOMAN'S HONOR IS INVOLVED, AND MY SILENCE IS ITS
ONLY SAFEGUARD."
CHAPTER XXXVIII. "STOP THE CARRIAGE!"
CHAPTER XXXIX. IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR TRUE LOVE TO FORGET.
CHAPTER XL. "IT IS LIKE SUICIDE!"
CHAPTER XLI. GERALDINE'S SUSPENSE.
CHAPTER XLII. "YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I HATE TO RAKE UP THE ASHES OF THE
PAST."
CHAPTER XLIII. CISSY'S PATHETIC LOVE STORY.
CHAPTER XLIV. "HOW CAN I REPAY THEIR BOUNTY WITH SUCH TREACHERY?"
CHAPTER XLV. "IF I WERE A KING I WOULD RAISE HER TO MY THRONE!"
CHAPTER XLVI. "I WILL TEST MY DARLING'S LOVE."
CHAPTER XLVII. LADY AMY'S LOVERS.
CHAPTER XLVIII. EVERY WOMANLY IMPULSE IN HER NATURE CRIED OUT AGAINST
SUCH A CRUEL WRONG.
CHAPTER XLIX. ONLY PRIDE.
CHAPTER L. "LOVE MAKES FOOLS OF US ALL!"
CHAPTER LI. STARTLING NEWS.
CHAPTER LII. FOR CISSY'S SAKE.
CHAPTER LIII. "I WILL NEVER FORGIVE HER!"
CHAPTER LIV. "WILL YOU BID ME GODSPEED."
CHAPTER LV. DETECTED.
CHAPTER LVI. A REPENTANT SINNER.
CHAPTER LVII. A NIGHTMARE DREAM.
CHAPTER LVIII. SENTENCE OF DEATH.
CHAPTER LIX. WEDDED TO HER CHOICE.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE THRESHOLD OF HER FATE.
"If I could have my dearest wish fulfilled,
And take my choice of all earth's treasures, too,
Or choose from Heaven whatsoe'er I willed,
I'd ask for you!
"No one I'd envy, either high or low,
No king in castle old or palace new;
I'd hold Calconda's mines less rich than I
If I had you!"
"There is more charm for my true, loving heart,
In everything you think, or say, or do,
Then all the joys that Heaven could e'er impart,
Because it's you!"
She stood behind the counter in H. O'Neill's splendid dry-goods
emporium on Sixth avenue--only one of his army of salesgirls, yet
not a belle of the famous society Four Hundred could eclipse her in
beauty--pretty Geraldine, with her great, starry, brown eyes lighting
up a bewitching face, with a skin like a rose-leaf, and a low, white
brow, crowned by an aureole of curly hair, in whose waves the sunshine
was tangled so that it could not get free. Her round, white throat rose
proudly from a simple, nun-like gown of fine black serge, unadorned
save by the beauty of the form it fitted with easy grace.
She would have graced a queen's drawing-room, this lovely girl with her
starry eyes and demure dimples, but untoward fate had placed her behind
a glove counter in New York.
It was very cold up to ten o'clock that bright October morning, and the
great throngs of fall shoppers were not yet out in force, so Geraldine
had an idle moment in which to gossip with her chum, plump, gray-eyed
Cissy Carroll.
They both belonged to an amateur dramatic society, and a generous
manager had sent them tickets for the play that evening. It was of this
anticipated pleasure that they were chatting joyously, when a low,
deep, masculine voice spoke to Geraldine across the counter:
"Gloves, please."
She turned quickly toward her customer, and at the same moment a very
exacting lady claimed Cissy's attention.
The shop was rapidly filling with elegantly dressed women of fashion,
and they would have no more leisure that day.
Geraldine saw before her an elegant-looking gentleman--tall,
broad-shouldered, graceful, with a clean-shaven face, clear-cut
features, fair, clustering locks, and large, glittering, light-blue
eyes, keen and clear as points of steel in their direct gaze, but with
something unpleasant somehow in their admiring expression that made the
pretty salesgirl drop her eyes bashfully, as he continued, easily:
"I have lost a bet of a box of gloves to a lady, and would like you to
assist me in selecting some pretty ones to pay the debt."
"What size?" she asked, as she began pulling down the boxes.
"Sixes," he replied, and added: "She is a gay and pretty young girl--an
actress."
"An actress!" Geraldine sighed, enviously, then smothered the sigh by
saying, carelessly: "We both wear the same size of glove."
"Ah!" and the customer gazed admiringly at the slender, dimpled white
hands sorting out the gloves, then continued: "And I am an actor, and
it pleases me to tell you that I am Clifford Standish, the leading man
in 'Hearts and Homes,' the society play you are going to see to-night."
He laid his elegantly engraved card before her, and she started with
surprise and pleasure, faltering, eagerly:
"I--I am proud to know you--but how did you guess I was going to the
theatre to-night?"
"I beg your pardon for listening, but I heard you and your chum talking
about it while I stood at the counter waiting for you to notice me."
"Oh, did I keep you waiting? I am very sorry; and if the floor-walker
had observed my inattention, I should have been scolded."
Clifford Standish drank in with keen delight the music of her voice,
and thrilled with rapture at her rare beauty, so he answered, gallantly:
"He did not see you, and I was in no hurry, for it pleased me just
to stand there and watch you. I was watching your spirited face and
gestures and thinking that you would make a clever actress. You belong
to an amateur dramatic society, do you not?"
"Oh, yes, and I enjoy it so much. It is the dream of my life to be
an actress!" exclaimed Geraldine, impulsively, her eager, brown eyes
shining like stars. Her beauty thrilled his blood like a draught of
rare old wine, and he felt that here was the love of his life, for no
woman had ever touched his heart as maddeningly as this one; so he
answered, almost as passionately, in a swift, overmastering impulse to
draw her within the circle of his life:
"A dream that may easily become a reality. Will you let me help you to
become an actress? I am almost sure that I can secure you a position in
my company."
"Oh, I would be so grateful," smiled Geraldine, her cheeks glowing
crimson with joy.
"Then you will permit me to call on you and talk it over? Let me
see--you will be at home this evening at seven o'clock, will you not?
May I come for half an hour at that time?"
"If you please," she answered, eagerly, scribbling her address on the
back of his card.
He took it with thanks, his keen, blue eyes gleaming with triumph at
the success of his ruse, and then gave his attention to the gloves,
which he paid for and directed to be sent to his hotel.
He lingered as long as he dared after the purchase, but another
customer soon claimed Geraldine's attention, so he smiled and bowed
himself away, leaving the young girl with a fluttering heart and
blushing cheeks, the result of this chance, but fateful, meeting.
Geraldine and Cecilia were close friends, having come together
from their country homes to seek employment among strangers in the
great city. They roomed together in the third story of a cheap
apartment-house, and Cissy, as her intimates called her, was like an
older sister to the ambitious Geraldine.
Cissy was twenty-five, and her friend only eighteen, so she always
assumed the role of adviser to her junior, and as they walked home from
the store that evening, she said, reprovingly:
"My dear, I didn't like the young man who talked to you so glibly over
the gloves this morning."
"Ah, Cissy, you don't know who that young man was, or you would be
proud of his notice!" And Geraldine poured out a breathless account of
her good fortune.
But, to her surprise, Cecilia answered, gravely:
"Oh, I heard a good deal that he was saying to you, and noticed, too,
that he looked at you as if he would like to eat you up. But, dear
Geraldine, please don't let him persuade you with his silly flatteries
to go on the stage. It's a hard life for a young girl, they say, and
full of terrible temptations. Believe me, you are better off behind
O'Neill's glove counter."
Geraldine's pride was cruelly wounded at Cissy's lack of sympathy in
her pet ambition, and she answered, rashly:
"Cissy Carroll, you're just jealous, that's why you preach to me! I
can't help being pretty and attractive, can I? And I know that if he
had offered to make you an actress, instead of me, you'd have sung
quite another tune."
Cecilia felt her friend's slur on her own attractiveness, and flushed
with quick resentment.
She knew that she was not as beautiful as Geraldine, but she had the
soft, plump prettiness of a gray dove, so attractive to many men, and
she had not lacked for admirers, although, for reasons of her own, she
was single still, so she tossed her pretty dark head, her gray eyes
flashing scorn, and made no reply to the ungenerous attack.
Geraldine, still angry, continued, patronizingly:
"If you would like to be an actress, too, Cissy, I'll introduce the
actor to you when he calls this evening, and ask him to get you a
position."
"Pray, don't trouble yourself, for I sha'n't enter the room while he's
there. I despise real stage people! They're most always shabby sheep,
and their acquaintance no credit," returned Cissy, rudely, giving such
mortal offense by the taunt that Geraldine did not speak another word
to her on the way home.
They had two small rooms, and Cissy hastened to one to prepare their
simple tea, so as to get ready for the theatre, but Geraldine hurried
to beautify herself for her caller, putting on her best gown, a garnet
cashmere, with velvet trimmings, and drawing her wealth of golden brown
locks into the classic Psyche knot.
"Supper's ready!" called Cissy, curtly, from the next room.
"I don't want any, thank you," Geraldine answered, coldly, and, indeed,
her excitement ran too high for her to eat.
So Cissy ate her solitary meal in snubbed silence, while the radiant
Geraldine entertained her caller, for Clifford Standish soon came, and
spent a delightful half-hour, having to tear himself away at the last
minute to return to his stage duties. Then she and Cissy patched up a
kind of truce, and went together to the play, returning at the close,
Cissy silent and disapproving, and Geraldine more determined than ever
to go on the stage.
The girls were very distant to each other after that, but Geraldine
carried a high head, and clung to her purpose, encouraged by the
handsome young actor, who called on her for a short while every
evening, and gave her tickets to every performance, declaring that she
inspired him to his best work by the rapt gaze of her appreciative eyes
as she sat in the audience.
But Cissy would not accompany her friend again to the play, doing all
she could in a quiet way to wean her from her infatuation, but in vain.
She thought that Geraldine was weak and vain and silly, and the latter
believed that Cissy was jealous of her good fortune. She hoped that
she would soon be able to go on the stage, and part from the girl who
had grown so selfish and cruel. The breach widened between their once
loving hearts, and neither tried to bridge it over by a kind, forgiving
word.
Toward the end of the week, Geraldine said, coldly:
"I am not going to work to-morrow morning, Cissy. I asked for a day's
holiday before I left the store yesterday."
"Why?" asked Cissy, curiously.
"Mr. Standish has invited me to go with him on an excursion to Newburgh
to witness the firemen's parade there. The firemen are having a grand
celebration, you know, with splendid music, a grand parade, and all
sorts of firemen's games. I wish you were going, too, Cissy!" wistfully.
"Well, I don't, and I think you are imprudent to go alone with that
strange actor--so there!"
"Well, come with us, Cissy, won't you? I don't think he would mind your
going!"
"Oh, yes, he would! 'Two are company, three a crowd!'" Cissy quoted,
flippantly, and she went alone to work the next morning, Geraldine
having started at an earlier hour to take the day boat for Newburgh.
CHAPTER II.
A FRIEND IN NEED.
"I had a dream of Love.
It seemed that on a sudden, in my heart,
A live and passionate thing leaped into being,
And conquered me. 'Twas fierce and terrible,
And yet more lovely than the dawn, and soft,
With a deep power. It roused a longing
To do I know not what--to give--ah, yes!
More than myself! And--failing that--to _die_!"
"How lovely she is, this brown-eyed little beauty! My heart is really
touched at last, and I would give the world to call her mine!" thought
Clifford Standish, as he led Geraldine on the crowded boat and watched
her sweet face glow with pleasure at the animated scene.
He said to her, in apparent jest, but secret earnest:
"There are some members of the crack company of the New York Fire
Department on board this morning, going to Newburgh, to take part in
the parade and games to-day. They are fine-looking fellows, in their
bright, new uniforms, but I hope you won't lose your heart to any of
them. I think fate has destined you for an actor's bride."
His ardent, meaning glance made the blood flow in a torrent to her
cheeks, but she was saved the necessity of replying, for at that moment
she saw a woman's handkerchief waved to him from the shore, and he
exclaimed, in an embarrassed tone:
"I see a friend beckoning me. Will you excuse me for a moment?"
He ran hastily down the gang-plank, leaving Geraldine alone on the
crowded deck among the good-natured throng of people in the nipping air
of the early morning, for the sunshine had not yet pierced the fog that
lightly overhung the beautiful Hudson.
But Geraldine did not mind the frosty air, for her dark-blue suit was
both warm and becoming, and the merry crowd and the martial music
played by the band inspired her to cheerful thoughts.
She passed the minutes so pleasantly in watching the animated faces
about her that she did not realize how long Mr. Standish was absent,
until suddenly the whistle blew, the gang-plank was drawn up, and the
steamer moved away from shore, thrilling the girl with swift alarm over
her escort's absence.
She looked about her with a keen, searching gaze, then back to the
shore.
A crowd of people were leaving the wharf, but among none of them could
she distinguish the stately form of Mr. Standish.
"What had become of her escort?" she asked herself, in terror,
wondering if he had willfully deserted her like this.
A choking sob rose up in her pretty throat, and her eyes filled with
frightened tears.
She thought, miserably:
"Oh, I wish I hadn't come! I wish I had listened to Cissy's warnings!
Why did Mr. Standish treat me like this? He is a mean wretch, and I'll
never, never speak to him again!"
Poor little Geraldine, so lovely and so impulsive, if she had kept
to that resolution, this story would never have been written. Her
life would have flowed on too quietly and happily to have tempted a
novelist's pen.
But "fate is above us all."
She looked about her despairingly for a friendly face among all those
strangers.
Her tearful eyes encountered the gaze of a fireman who had been
covertly watching her ever since she came on board.
He was a magnificent specimen of athletic young manhood, his fine
straight figure setting off to advantage his resplendent uniform of
dark-blue, with fawn-colored facings and gilt buttons. His face was
bold, handsome, and winning, with a straight nose, laughing dark-blue
eyes, a dark, curling mustache, while beneath his blue cap clustered
beautiful blue-black curls, fine and glossy as a woman's hair.
When Geraldine's appealing eyes met the admiring gaze of this young man
it paused and lingered as if held by some irresistible attraction, and,
advancing to her, he lifted his blue cap courteously from his handsome
head, saying, kindly:
"You seem to be in trouble, miss. Can I help you?"
Thus encouraged by his kind look and tone, the girl faltered out her
distressing plight:
"My escort went back on shore to speak to a friend, and was left
behind. And I--I--don't know anybody--and have no ticket--and no money
with me!"
Poor, troubled baby! How charming she was with those crimson cheeks
and wet eyes, and that tremulous quiver in her low voice! The handsome
fireman's heart went out to her so strongly that he longed to take her
in his arms like a child, and kiss away her pearly tears.
But of course, he didn't obey that strong impulse. He only said,
cordially:
"Don't let that little trifle worry you, miss. You must permit me to
buy you a ticket, and to take care of you to-day, like a brother. Will
you?"
How glad Geraldine was to find such a kind friend. Her heart began to
rebound from its depression, and she exclaimed, gratefully:
"Oh, how can I thank you enough? I felt so frightened, so like a
lost child, till you spoke to me! Yes, I shall be very grateful if
you will buy me a ticket. I'll pay you when we get back to New York.
And--and--till then, please keep this!"
She held out to him her sole ornament, a pretty little ring, and
insisted, against all his entreaties, that he should hold it in pawn
for her debt.
"You oughtn't to trust your engagement-ring to another fellow," he
said, lightly, as he slipped it over his little finger.
Geraldine blushed brightly as she answered to this daring challenge:
"Oh, it's not my engagement-ring at all. I'm not engaged."
"I'm very glad to hear it," he replied, meaningly, then proffered her
his card, on which she read, in a clear, bold chirography, the name:
"HARRY HAWTHORNE."
Geraldine bowed, and said:
"I haven't a card, but my name is Miss Harding--Geraldine Harding.
I would like your address, please, so that I may return your money
to-morrow."
"I am usually at the engine-house on Ludlow street--Engine Company No.
17. Driver, you see; and our splendid horses--oh, but you ought to see
how they love me," enthusiastically; then pulling himself up with a
jerk; "but, pray don't trouble to return the money. It will be better
for me to call, will it not, and return your ring?"
She assented, and gave him her address; then he found her a seat, and
as their boat plowed swiftly through the frothing waves, they fell
into a pleasant chat, during which he said, courteously:
"I saw you come on board with Standish, the actor. Are you a member of
his company?"
"Not yet; but I hope to be one soon. I'm only a salesgirl at O'Neill's
now, but Mr. Standish has promised to help me to become an actress."
She read distinct disapproval in his dark-blue eyes as he said:
"But you will have to study a long while before you can make your
debut."
"No, for I've already studied a great deal, and acted several parts in
the amateur dramatic company to which I belong. Mr. Standish says I can
go right on as soon as I secure a position."
"Perhaps you will regret it if you go on the stage," he observed,
abruptly.
"Oh, no; for it is the dream of my life!" smiled Geraldine.
"Will your friends permit it?"
"I'm only an orphan girl, earning her own living, so I don't need to
ask any one's leave. And I'm glad of that, for I'm ambitious, and
want to rise in life. I'm tired of being the slave of the public at a
dry-goods counter," cried Geraldine, with sparkling eyes.
He gazed at her admiringly, but he did not hesitate to say:
"It is only an exchange of slavery from the counter to the stage. You
will be the slave of the public still. If you would listen to me, I
would persuade you to remain where you are--until some good man marries
you, and makes you the queen of his heart and home."
Geraldine tossed her shining head, and gave him a saucy smile, and
retorted:
"That sounds like my chum's preaching, but I shall not listen to either
of you. My heart is set on a stage career."
Harry Hawthorne gave her a grave look, but made no reply in words,
and for a few moments they kept silence, while the gay, lilting music
of the band filled up the pauses, and the sun pierced through the fog
and smiled on the majestic steamer plowing her way through the blue,
sparkling waves.
Geraldine felt intuitively that he disapproved of her plans, and
maintained a pouting silence until he remarked, genially:
"I have an idea!"
She looked at him, questioningly, and he continued:
"The wife of our captain is on board to-day, going to Newburgh. Now,
wouldn't it be pleasant to introduce you, so that she could look after
you while I'm taking part in the firemen's games?"
Geraldine felt as if he were tired of her already, and eager to put her
in charge of some one else, and her heart sank with a strange pain,
but she did not permit him to see her mortification, she only gave an
eager, smiling assent.
"I should like it very much, if the lady will be so kind."
"Then I will go and bring Mrs. Stansbury, if you'll wait here for us,"
and smiling at her, a friendly smile that warmed her chilled heart like
a burst of sudden sunshine, he bowed himself away, and left the little
beauty sitting alone by the rail.
She leaned her elbows on the rail, her dimpled chin in her hands, and
watched the foamy waves with tender eyes as she thought how bonny he
was, her handsome new acquaintance. Almost nicer, indeed, than Clifford
Standish, or at least he would be, but for his absurd prejudice against
her going on the stage.
"Won't Cissy be surprised when I have another handsome caller? I
suppose she'll be cross, and wonder where I got another string to my
bow," thought the budding coquette, with artless vanity.
She decided not to tell Cissy of the actor's strange conduct, for she
would only say that he did it on purpose, and that it served her right.
"And I shall not give her the chance to crow over me, and say, 'I told
you so!'" murmured Geraldine.
In the preoccupation of her mind, she did not notice that the rail she
leaned on was old and weak, and had been mended at that very place. In
the sudden indignation at the thought of Cissy's contumacy, she leaned
yet more heavily upon it, and, with a sudden snap, the frail support
gave way, precipitating its lovely burden into the water.
"Heaven have mercy!" shrieked poor Geraldine, as she went downward over
the side of the boat--down, down down, into the churning, frothy waves.
In a moment all was terror, bustle, and confusion, the passengers
all crowding to the side to look over, almost precipitating another
accident in the excitement.
"Give way!" cried a stern, ringing voice, as the tall form of the
fireman pushed through the crowd, and he demanded, hoarsely:
"What has happened?"
And a dozen voices answered that there had been an accident to the
young lady he had been with just now. The rail on which she leaned had
broken, throwing her into the water.
"My God!" he cried, supplicatingly, and sprang over the side to the
rescue of the drowning girl!
CHAPTER III.
A GALLANT RESCUE.
"Awake, awake, oh, gracious heart--
There's some one knocking at the door!
'Tis Cupid come with loving art
To honor, worship, and implore.
Arise and welcome him before
Adown his cheeks the big tears start.
Awake, awake, oh, gracious heart--
There's some one knocking at the door."
Several moments of keenest suspense ensued, while the noisy and excited
crowd watched the water where Geraldine's fair head had gone down
beneath the surface.
Harry Hawthorne made a bold and gallant dive through the eddying
circles on the water, and for a few breathless moments, he, too, was
lost to sight.
The people shouted, in dismay and pity:
"They are both lost! They have been sucked under the boat by the swift
current!"
Every face grew sad at the thought, and some tender-hearted women burst
into tears.
It seemed terrible that those two beautiful young lives should have
gone down so suddenly and tragically into the darkness of death.
But, suddenly, a low murmur of joy rose above the lamentations.
"See! see!"
The dark head of Harry Hawthorne had reappeared above the waves.
In another moment it was seen that he held Geraldine clasped to him
with one arm, her white, unconscious face and dripping hair upturned to
the light.
Supporting himself as best he could with one free arm, he halooed,
loudly:
"Boat! boat!"
Oh, what a ringing cheer answered him--shouts of joy at the rescue;
shouts of praise at his bravery!
In the meanwhile the steamer had been stopped, and a little boat let
down. The men rowed quickly to Hawthorne, and drew him and his burden
into safety.
The whole affair had passed off very quickly, but only the strength and
bravery of one man had saved pretty Geraldine from a grave beneath the
deep, sparkling waves of the beautiful Hudson.
As it was, she had sustained no injury, and soon recovered
consciousness, looking about her with dazed eyes, to find her rescuer
kneeling by her side, gazing at her with eager, dark-blue eyes, full of
yearning anxiety.
"Oh, you need not look so frightened, Mr. Hawthorne. She is all right
now, and I'm going to take her down stairs and lend her some of my dry
clothes!" cried a gay voice, and the pretty young married woman to whom
he had been about to introduce Geraldine when she fell into the river,
now took the girl in charge and led her down stairs, saying, cheerily:
"You'll be all right directly. I'm going to get you some wine, and have
you lie down and rest a while when you get on some dry clothes. Oh, you
don't know my name, do you?
"I am Mrs. Stansbury, and Harry Hawthorne was bringing me over to see
you when you fell into the water. A mercy you wern't drowned, isn't it?
You certainly would have been, only for his bravery."
Closeted in the little state-room, she continued:
"How fortunate that I brought along a little steamer trunk, expecting
to spend several days with my mother in Newburgh. I can lend you an
outfit, for we are almost the same size, aren't we? But I'll wager that
Harry Hawthorne will not be able to borrow a suit big enough for him,
and will have to remain 'in durance vile' until his own clothes are
dry."
Her words proved true, and she and Geraldine did not see the handsome
fireman again until just before they landed, when he joined them,
looking fresh and bright, and none the worse for his ducking, excusing
his absence by saying, gayly, that he had been hung over a line to dry.
His eager eyes sought Geraldine's, and he said, tenderly:
"You feel no worse for your wetting, I hope?"
"No, indeed, thanks to the coddling of Mrs. Stansbury and the other
ladies, but"--and her low voice broke with grateful emotion--"how can I
ever thank you enough?"
"Let my own keen joy in saving your life be my reward," he answered,
lightly, but with an undercurrent of joy in his deep, musical voice,
for it seemed to him that had she perished beneath the cruel, darkling
waves, life would never have seemed the same to him again.
Yet he knew that it might never be possible to win her for his own. His
rival, the handsome actor, might already be lord of her girlish heart.
The bustle of landing cut short any further interchange of words
between them, and when they stepped on shore, Mrs. Stansbury said, in
her cordial way:
"I have claimed Miss Harding for my mother's guest, and she will
go with me to the ball to-night, and return to New York with you
to-morrow. Now, I see mamma's carriage waiting. Will you come with us
to luncheon before we go out to the parade?"
"I thank you, no, for some of the fellows are waiting for me now. But I
will see you later. _Au revoir!_"
He smiled frankly at Geraldine, touched his cap, and hurried away,
seeming to take away some of the sunshine with him, for her heart had
gone out to him in a great wave of tenderness that blotted out the
memory of Clifford Standish as though he had never existed.
She looked at her companion, and asked, naively:
"Why did you say I would go to the ball? I have no dress to wear."
"What does that matter? I have several sisters. One of them can lend
you a white silk, I'm sure. Why, you pretty darling, I wouldn't have
you miss that ball for the world! Perhaps you will meet your fate
there!"
CHAPTER IV.
"TWO SOULS WITH BUT A SINGLE THOUGHT."
"In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grave,
And men below, and saints above;
For love is heaven and heaven is love."
It seemed like a pretty act in a new play to Geraldine, the crowding
events of that delightful day.
To be welcomed so cordially by Mrs. Stansbury's gentle mother, to
ride through the crowded and gayly decorated streets, in the private
carriage, to the hospitable red brick house full of pretty fun-loving
girls, and to be installed as an honored guest in a dainty chamber, was
a treat to the little working-girl whose life flowed in such a narrow
groove of toil and poverty, and she thought, generously:
"Oh, I am very fortunate to find such kind friends, and I will always
love them for their goodness to me. How I wish Cissy had come with me,
for she would enjoy this so much."
Mrs. Stansbury entered with a great fluff of silk and lace over her
arm, saying, cheerily:
"Here's the ball-gown I promised for to-night--Carrie's gown that she
wore when she graduated last year. No, she doesn't need it. She has
a blue silk-and-chiffon affair for the ball; so you'll be all right,
won't you? And now let's go and have our luncheon, for we must hurry
down town, where we have windows engaged to sit in and watch the
parade. Oh, dear, I'm so sorry that my hubby, the captain, couldn't get
away and come with us!"
They had a delightful luncheon, very enjoyable after their morning on
the water, then the party of six--Mrs. Stansbury, her mother, Mrs.
Odell, and her three daughters, Carrie, Consuelo, and Daisy, with
pretty Geraldine--set out for the centre of attraction, Newburgh's
"triangular square" at the junction of Water and Colden streets.
Here the party had two large plate-glass windows over a splendid
dry-goods store. From this vantage ground the scene presented, as the
magnificent parade filed past, was one to be treasured long in memory.
It was a glittering spectacle, with thirty companies in line, and
almost as many bands. Newburgh had not seen such a great day as this
for years, with its glorious sunshine, brilliant uniforms, dazzling
apparatus, splendid music, and throngs of appreciative people.
The crowd was enormous, the broad pavements packed with a living
mass of humanity; the door-ways, balconies, windows, house-tops, a
sea of faces. When the dazzling pageant swept by, the effect was
kaleidoscopic. The bright gay uniforms of the fine-looking men, the
beautiful caparisons of the prancing horses, the heavily plated,
imposing engines, the light and graceful carriages, with their
paintings and stripings, their images and lamps, their glass-and-gold
reel-heads, their silver and gold jackets--all gleamed and glittered
in the flashing sunlight like an Arabian Night's dream, and the hearty
applause of the gazing crowds made the welkin ring.
Geraldine was charmed with everything, and her lovely, smiling face
caught the upraised admiring glance of many a gallant fireman as the
long column of thirty companies swept past to the ringing martial music
of the accompanying bands. She forgot all her resentment against Cissy
in her poignant regret that her chum was missing all this splendor and
enjoyment.
But, strange to say, not one regretful thought wandered toward her lost
cavalier, Clifford Standish.
She had forgotten him for the time, and her whole soul was thrilled
with the present--permeated, enraptured with the thought of Harry
Hawthorne, the handsome, dashing fireman who had so nobly saved her
life. She loved him already, but she did not know her heart's language
yet--her heart that had already elected him its king.
What though his position was an humble one, it was equal to hers, and
Geraldine had never reflected that beauty like her own ought to win her
a fine rich lover. She was in a whirl of bliss at the all-pervading
thought that she had met her fate at last.
"He is mine, and I am his," ran the secret voice of her tender heart.
She watched the firemen eagerly as they paraded past, hoping for a
sight of his face among them, so she did not hear the door open behind
her until a hand touched her shoulder and she looked up with a start,
her voice unconsciously betraying the rapture of her heart as she
cried:
"Oh-h-h!--I thought you were in the parade!"
He smiled, radiantly, his heart thrilling with joy.
"No, I am not in the parade. That is, I chose not to be. You see, my
company did not come, to take part, only a few of us fellows, so we can
do as we like. We were offered seats in the carriages with the visiting
firemen, and the others accepted. But I--I thought I would return and
remain with you ladies."
His voice said "ladies," but his eyes said "you," and Geraldine
thrilled deliciously.
Oh, how gay and happy she felt--happier than she had ever been in her
whole life before. The dawn of love made the whole world roseate with
sunshine.
And never had she looked more beautiful. The joy in her heart sent the
warm blood leaping through her veins and made her eyes brighter, her
cheeks redder, until she was dazzlingly lovely.
Harry Hawthorne remained with the party all the rest of the afternoon.
Other young men joined them presently, admirers of the pretty Odell
girls, and later on they repaired to the County Fair Grounds to witness
some of the firemen's games taking place there.
Seated on the grand stand, by the side of Geraldine, Harry Hawthorne
felt as proud and happy as a king, for the same sweet wine of Love that
thrilled the girl flowed intoxicatingly through his veins.
"For what was it else within me wrought
But, I fear, the new strong wine of Love,
That made my tongue to stammer and trip
When I saw the treasured splendor, her hand,
Come sliding out of her sacred glove,
As the sunlight broke from her lip?"
The tournament and games of this afternoon were only a repetition by
Newburgh firemen of the ones that had been participated in the previous
day by the visiting companies--"consolation races," the chief merrily
called them.
But the grand stand was packed and the entertainment was novel and
interesting, as evidenced by the frequent applause of the crowd.
The exercises after the pretty tournament consisted mainly of
hose-racing contests, in which firemanic skill was displayed at its
best.
"You must explain the game to me. You see, I never thought much about
firemen before, although I am deeply interested in them now," pretty
Geraldine said, naively, to her delighted companion.
He thanked her with a kindling glance of pleasure, and answered:
"It will give me pleasure to explain it all to you, Miss Harding. It is
very simple indeed, depending on the skill and dexterity of the men. In
the first place, the rules of the game require fifteen men. They must
run two hundred yards to the hydrant, with a hose cart, and from that
point lay one hundred yards of hose, make a coupling, and screw on the
pipe. But these technical terms are Greek to you, of course, so I will
try to make it clear to you as they proceed."
He did so, and Geraldine, who was beginning to love all firemen, for
the sake of the splendid one by her side, watched the contest with
breathless interest.
But now arose a difficulty.
The Newburgh company had only fourteen good runners, and they must have
a fifteenth one.
But the rules of the race required that no company should make use of
the services of a member of another company.
It was finally decided that as the race was not for a prize, but simply
for practice and amusement, the rule might be waived for one in favor
of a visiting fireman.
Then a murmur arose among the firemen that suddenly swelled to a
clamorous shout:
"Hawthorne! Hawthorne!"
Mrs. Stansbury, who sat on the other side of Geraldine, looked round,
and exclaimed, gayly:
"They are calling you, Mr. Hawthorne. Why don't you go?"
"I prefer remaining here," he smiled back, though a slight flush rose
to his brow as the calls continued more clamorously:
"Hawthorne! Hawthorne! Hawthorne!"
All eyes turned on him as he sat unmoved, and a delegation of firemen
came to insist on his joining the race.
"Oh, do go, Mr. Hawthorne. I think it will be grand to join the race!"
exclaimed Geraldine, enthusiastically, and he rose at once like a
gallant knight who has no other wish than to do the behest of his
lady-love.
Mrs. Stansbury whispered as he went away:
"He will win the race for them. He is a magnificent athlete, my husband
says. And as for horses--well, you should see him control them! They
love and obey him like a master, and he has a passion for them. He is
a splendid fellow, though there is something rather mysterious about
him. He has been driver for No. 17 two years, yet no one knows where
he came from or aught about his family. But he is educated above his
position, and has betrayed that he has lived abroad. We think he is
English or Irish--perhaps a mixture of both. But, anyway, he is just
magnificent, and the men and the horses both worship him alike. He has
been a hero at dozens of fires, and has several medals of honor, but he
will not accept promotion. He says he loves the horses, and will not
give up driving. But look! the team is about to start!"
Every word she uttered only made Geraldine love Hawthorne more dearly,
for what woman does not love a hero?
Geraldine watched the contest with flashing eyes; but, needless to say,
she saw but one man, and she soon realized that the most thunderous
applause was given to him.
"He is the swiftest runner of them all!" cried Carrie Odell. "Look how
the men are dropping off! They cannot stand it. Seven, eight, nine,
ten, have given up. Oh-h-h!"
"Another! And another!" cried her sister, Consuelo, and so it kept on
till when they reached the finish they had only two men to open the
hydrant, and screw on the pipe--a simple operation it would seem to a
novice, but it is just here that the race is won or lost. Under the
moment's excitement the couplers will likely find their nerves unsteady
after the long run. But these two men made no false moves. They put on
the pipe with indescribable speed, then ran on the remaining hundred
yards to the judge's stand, Harry Hawthorne coming out ahead amid the
deafening cheers of his admirers.
The judges took the time at the very instant that the pipe touched the
ground, and after examining the coupling they found it all right, and
announced the time as forty-six and one-fourth seconds.
The victors retired amid tumultuous applause, and another team prepared
to run, Hawthorne returning very soon to Geraldine's side to sun
himself in her admiring eyes.
"You were splendid, and I was proud of you!" she cried, innocently,
unconscious of the tenderness her words implied.
"Thank you. I am proud that I pleased you; but I was sorry they made
me run. I was trying to keep rested and fresh to dance with you at the
ball to-night," he answered, lightly.
"And now you will be too tired--I am sorry for that."
How frankly she could talk to him, and yet they had been strangers only
this morning; yet it seemed as if they had known each other years and
years.
"No, I shall not be too weary to dance with you," he answered, tenderly.
Then others of the party claimed his attention, and Geraldine sat in
a happy dream, thinking how heavenly it would be dancing with him
to-night.
Presently the games were over, and the weary, happy throng
departed--the Odells and their guests to make ready for the grand
fireman's ball they were going to attend that night.
"Oh, I wonder what Cissy will say when I don't come back to-night? She
will be uneasy about me; perhaps angry. But she will forgive me when
I tell her how it happened, and what a lovely time I had," thought
Geraldine.
But again she did not even think of Clifford Standish, or even wonder
what had become of him. She was full of the dear, delightful present.
How delightful it was to be dressing for a grand ball, in white
slippers and a fairy-like gown of white silk, and with white roses for
her breast and hair. Geraldine felt like a Cinderella going to the ball
with a prince, for Harry Hawthorne was coming to be her escort, and to
her he was the handsomest man on earth, a veritable Prince Charming.
She looked at her reflection in the long mirror, with artless delight
at her own beauty.
"How pretty I look! I hope he will think so, too, but perhaps he knows
some one more beautiful," she murmured, uneasily.
CHAPTER V.
RIVALS AND FOES.
"We meet where harp and violin
Were singing songs of mirth,
Where creatures floated in the space
Almost too fair for earth.
He moved amid the surging crowd,
And by one single glance
My heart was lost, forever lost,
While swinging in the dance."
Oh, how Geraldine enjoyed the first two hours of the ball!
It was one of the most brilliant affairs ever given in Newburgh.
The dazzling lights shone on an animated scene, adorned with rich
floral garnitures, and brightened by the rich uniforms of the firemen,
mixed with the sober black of the ordinary citizen, and the gay gowns
of the beautiful women.
Geraldine, with her golden fluff of hair, bright brown eyes, and
shining white attire, was the cynosure of all eyes, and many a gallant
fireman envied Harry Hawthorne, who was her partner so often in the
joyous dance.
True, she would dance with any of them to whom he introduced her, but
each one saw by the wandering glances of her brown eyes that Hawthorne
was first in her heart and thoughts.
So the first two hours passed by like a dream of bliss.
Geraldine loved music and dancing and gayety, with all her heart. She
loved, too, the congenial new friends she had made, and lost in the
delightful present, she forgot for a time her feverish ambition to
become an actress and shine upon the stage.
What exquisite rapture may be crowded into two hours--rapture that will
linger in the memory till death blots out all. So it was with Geraldine.
When Hawthorne pressed her hand in the dance, and looked into her eyes,
drinking in deep draughts the intoxication of her beauty and sweetness,
the girl thrilled with a rapture akin to pain, and those moments of
dizzy, subtle bliss so dazzling in their brightness, returned to
Geraldine through all her life as her happiest hours--that hour in a
woman's life when First Love "is a shy, sweet new-comer, and Hope leads
it by the hand."
"New hopes may bloom, and days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam;
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream."
How sad that a shadow should fall so suddenly over Geraldine's
happiness!
But as she stood at a window, panting from the dance, rosy and smiling,
as she talked to Harry Hawthorne, a shadow suddenly came between her
and the light, pausing by her side till she looked up and saw--Clifford
Standish!
Alas! that his shadow should ever come between her and the dawning
happiness of her life!
Alas! that she had ever met him, the handsome, unscrupulous actor, who
stood there scowling at his splendid rival!
"Mr. Standish!" she exclaimed, with a violent start, and a strange
feeling of annoyance, and he answered, impressively:
"How glad I am that I have found you at last!"
"Have you been looking for me?" she asked, coldly.
"Everywhere! And I beg ten thousand pardons for my seeming desertion
of you. It was wholly an accident, and the fault of my friend, who
detained me talking one minute too long. I followed you on the next
steamer, but it was several hours late, and all the time my mind was
distracted over what would become of you. Of course I knew you would
find friends--a beautiful girl alone in a crowd will always find a
protector; but," sneeringly, "not always a safe one!"
"I beg your pardon. It was I who protected Miss Harding," began Harry
Hawthorne, wrathfully, and the girl started, and exclaimed:
"Mr. Standish, this is Mr. Hawthorne, a very kind gentleman who paid
my fare on the boat after you left me without a ticket, and afterward
jumped into the river and saved my life when I fell overboard. I owe
him a debt of gratitude that I can never repay."
They bowed coldly, trying not to glare, each seeing in the other a
dangerous rival.
Clifford Standish was not pleasant to look at with that steely glare in
his large, light-blue eyes, and that angry compression of his shaven
lips as he said, coldly:
"I thank you, sir, for your care of my friend during my enforced
absence from her side. I will repay you the boat fare, and remain
deeply indebted to you for saving her life. Of course it goes without
saying that I shall now be honored with her company again, thus
relieving you of her care."
Harry Hawthorne, with a dangerous flash in his dark-blue eyes,
retorted, calmly:
"I beg your pardon. Her engagement with me for this evening gives me a
right that I shall not relinquish unless at her desire."
Both looked at the beautiful, flushed face of the girl. She
comprehended the sudden hate between them, and said, tremblingly, but
with the sweet tones of the peacemaker:
"I think Mr. Hawthorne is right. My engagement with you was for to-day,
and we were to have returned to-night, you know. But after you left me
alone on the boat, I made new friends, and a very sweet, kind lady,
well-known to Mr. Hawthorne, took charge of me and invited me to be
her guest while I staid in Newburgh. It was under her chaperonage I
came to the ball, and, with her consent, I accepted the escort of Mr.
Hawthorne. I cannot break my engagement with him, and I have promised,
also, to go back to New York in his care to-morrow."
Every word she uttered maddened him with secret fury. His face was
livid as he almost hissed:
"I should like to see this lady who chaperoned you here. How do I know
that she is a proper person!" he began, insolently, but at that moment
a lady tapped him smartly on the arm with her fan, exclaiming:
"Ha, ha, ha! I like that, Mr. Standish! A proper person indeed. Well,
I'm the person, and if you have any fault to find with me, my husband,
Captain Stansbury, will settle it with you."
"Miss Odell!" he exclaimed, recoiling in surprise from the sight of the
face of an old acquaintance.
"Mrs. Stansbury, please," she corrected him, then went on, gayly: "Do
you remember our flirtation at Asbury Park three years ago? I haven't
seen you since, have I? Well, I've been married two years now to the
finest man in New York. But my sisters are single yet. Come with me and
pay your respects to them before the german begins."
She dragged him reluctantly away, and then Hawthorne said, angrily:
"That fellow was inclined to be insolent, and I could scarcely refrain
from pitching him neck and heels through this window!"
"Oh, please, please, do not get into any trouble with him on my
account!" pleaded Geraldine. "He has been very kind to me, really, and
I should not wish to offend him!"
"Do not tell me he is your lover--that you care for him!" exclaimed the
young man, jealously.
"N-n-o, he is only a friend!" she faltered, and was glad when her
partner for the next dance came to claim her hand.
She knew in her heart that Clifford Standish regarded her with more
than a friendly liking, but she was not prepared to own it to impetuous
Harry Hawthorne, so she was glad to get away from his inquisitive looks
and words.
But the joy of the evening was ended now for pretty Geraldine.
Clifford Standish soon escaped from the Odell girls, and haunted
Geraldine the rest of the time, not offensively, but with the assurance
of a favored lover, torturing the poor girl who could not bear to wound
his feelings, but whose reserved and distrait manner did not discourage
his persistent gallantry, for he stood his ground, debarring the lovers
from any pleasure in each other's society.
Once Hawthorne whispered to her, fiercely:
"There comes that cad back. He is annoying you. I see it by your
altered looks. Will you not allow me to pitch him out of the window?"
"No--oh, no, you must not make a scene!" she shuddered, apprehensively.
"Then tell him yourself that you are weary of his persistent
following," he urged.
"Oh, no, I cannot wound him so. He has been kind to me, and means
no harm," she said, trying to make excuses that she felt he did not
deserve.
But she escaped from the ball as soon as she could, glad to be rid of
him, and spent a restless night, repenting the encouragement she had
given Standish before she met Hawthorne.
"They both love me, and I can see that they will be bitter foes," she
thought, in terror of some unknown evil.
The next morning Standish came at an early hour to call. He was
acquainted with the girls, and they tried by merry banter to drive the
threatening gloom from his brow; but all their efforts were dismal
failures. He had eyes only for Geraldine, who was pale and perturbed
under his reproachful glances, that seemed to say, bitterly:
"You are a cruel little coquette. You encouraged me to love you until
you met that other fellow, and now you wish to throw me over."
CHAPTER VI.
FORTUNE, THAT FICKLE GODDESS, FAVORS STANDISH.
"Her winsome, witching eyes
Flash like bits of summer skies
O'er her fan,
As if to say, 'We've met;
You may go now and forget--
If you can.'"
SAMUEL M. PECK.
It was a great relief to Geraldine when Harry Hawthorne arrived with
a cab to take her to the boat. Now at last she could escape her angry
lover.
He rose, indeed, to take leave of the family, but he said to her:
"I shall see you again, Miss Harding. I go back to New York on the same
boat."
He did so, but he did not judge it prudent to incur the wrath of
Hawthorne by too persistent attentions. He preserved a coolly courteous
demeanor toward both, devoting himself to some other friends whom he
met on the boat.
But, toward the last, he approached Geraldine again, murmuring,
pleadingly:
"I should like to call on you this evening, if you will permit me."
She blushed, and stammered:
"Please excuse me, as I have another engagement."
He saw her timid glance turn toward Hawthorne, and readily guessed that
she had made an engagement with him.
Stifling an execration between closely drawn lips, he muttered:
"To-morrow evening, then?"
"Oh, yes, certainly," she answered, but with an air of restraint that
made him furious.
"She would like to refuse if she dared, the little flirt," he thought,
and when Geraldine and Hawthorne left the boat together, he looked
after them pale with rage.
At that moment Cameron Clemens, one of the actor-friends he had met on
the boat, slapped him on the shoulder, and said, teasingly:
"Hallo, Standish! that was a stunning little beauty! But what are you
glowering at, man? Jealous, eh?"
"Jealous of a beggarly fireman? Bah, no! The little coquette will throw
him over to-morrow."
"And pick you up again, eh? Consolatory, by Jove! But who is she,
anyhow?"
"Oh, nobody but a salesgirl from O'Neill's. She scraped acquaintance
with me in the store some ten days ago, and has been begging me to get
her in my company ever since. You know how the pretty girls always run
after actors, Clemens."
"And how ardently the actors encourage their attentions; oh, yes,"
smiled the other, who was a very handsome young fellow himself. He
added, after a moment: "Is the girl stage-struck?"
"Yes, decidedly--member of an amateur dramatic society, and all that,
you know. Wild to go on the stage, and I intend to get her in our
company, just before we go on the road next week."
"But there's no vacancy."
"I'll get that little soubrette turned off. I owe her a grudge anyhow.
She slapped my face when I tried to kiss her in a dark corridor one
night."
"Oh, don't take revenge for that. She's a good little girl, that
Bettie," said Cameron Clemens, who, although he was the villain in the
play where Standish had the part of hero, was kind and generous at
heart.
But Clifford Standish could not be brought to relent.
"She can get another place," he said, carelessly. "The manager can't
afford to displease me. I'm drawing full houses every night. So out
goes prudish Bettie, and in comes pretty Geraldine!"
"You don't think you can kiss her in a dark corridor, do you?"
"I shall kiss her when I please. In fact, I intend to marry the little
beauty; so no attentions in that quarter, my friend."
"All right. I'll keep off the grass," returned the young actor,
slangily, and turning to his friend, Charlie Butler, they went away
together, leaving Standish to some bitter reflections, for his bravado
was all put on. He feared that Geraldine was lost to him forever.
"He will be with her this evening, that villainous fireman, while I am
plodding away on the stage," he thought, angrily.
But a most untoward fate helped him on when he feared that the game
was lost to him forever--helped him on, and blighted all the springing
hopes of poor Harry Hawthorne.
A morbid curiosity over his rival led him to stroll down on Ludlow
street that afternoon, in the neighborhood of the engine-house, and
he saw the horses dashing out attached to the engine, and the hated
Hawthorne on the driver's seat, handling the reins with consummate
skill, his handsome face aglow with excitement. An alarm of fire had
come in, and he was hastening to the scene.
Clifford Standish hated his manly rival more than ever at this moment,
but he impulsively joined the crowd that was running after the engine,
intent on seeing the fire.
On went the engine in splendid style, the horses obeying Hawthorne's
hand lovingly, their sleek sides shining, their manes streaming,
their fine heads erect, their large eyes flashing, a sight to win the
admiration of every gazer. Flying like the wind, their hoofs striking
fire from the pavement, they turned the corner, and---- Alas! what was
that shriek that went up from hundreds of throats?
Their splendid onset was defeated. In turning the corner the wheels
struck a car track at an angle, and the engine was overturned, the
gallant steeds struggling in the dust with their noble driver.
Clifford Standish rushed forward with demoniac glee, muttering:
"My rival is dead beneath the engine! I am free of him forever!"
CHAPTER VII.
THE POWER OF LOVE.
"To look for thee--sigh for thee--cry for thee,
Under my breath;
To clasp but a shade where thy head hath been laid,
It is death.
"To long for thee--yearn for thee--burn for thee--
Sorrow and strife!
But to have thee--and hold thee--and fold thee,
It is life, it is life!"
It almost seemed as if Clifford Standish was destined to realize his
diabolical hopes of his rival's death.
When Harry Hawthorne was drawn from his perilous position at the heels
of the horses, he was found to be unconscious, and the blood pouring
from a wound on his head.
An ambulance was called to convey him to the hospital, and the
physician in charge looked very serious over the case.
"It is impossible to say yet whether he is mortally injured or not.
He may simply be stunned from the bad cut on his head, or he may have
sustained internal injuries," he said to the anxious crowd about him,
and then the wounded man was lifted carefully into the ambulance, and
driven to the Bellevue Hospital.
Clifford Standish turned away from the scene with a diabolical smile of
triumph on his thin lips, hissing cruelly:
"The Fates have played me a good turn, and I will make the most of my
opportunity. Whether Harry Hawthorne lives or dies, I will come between
him and Geraldine so effectually that when he returns to her it will be
impossible to win her from me. Of course, I shall not go near her this
evening. She must be kept in ignorance of his accident, if possible,
so that she may think he has forsaken her. Ha, ha, ha! what a weary
waiting she will have for him this evening, and how angry she will be
because he has broken his engagement."
Geraldine did, indeed, have a weary waiting for her lover, and her
disappointment was keen and bitter at his failure to come.
But so absolute was her faith in him that she did not become angry, but
thought, excusingly:
"Something has happened to detain him, surely. Perhaps he was called
out to some dreadful fire. I shall be sure to receive a note from him
to-morrow, explaining all, craving my pardon, and appointing another
date to call."
She was so anxious, too, for Cissy to see him. She felt sure that her
friend would like him better than she had liked Clifford Standish.
When she reached home that day, she rested a while, then went down to
the store, and remained until closing time, returning with Cissy, who
was cold and indifferent, for Geraldine's non-return the night before
had filled her with alarm over the fate of the willful girl.
But Geraldine, eager for her friend's sympathy, put aside her former
petulance, and poured into Cissy's ear the story of the day and
night--the accident that had deprived her of the actor's company--the
new friends she had made, her fall into the water, her rescue, her
charming time at Newburgh--except that her girlish heart had gone from
her own keeping into that of noble, handsome, tender Harry Hawthorne.
But Cissy did not need to be told the latter. She read it in the blush
and smile of the innocent girl.
"How does Love speak?
In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek,
And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
The quivering lid of an averted eye--
The smile that proves the parent to a sigh--
Thus doth Love speak.
"How does Love speak?
In the proud spirit suddenly grown meek
The haughty heart grown humble; in the tender
And unnamed light that floods the world with splendor,
In the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble.
In looks and lips that can no more dissemble--
Thus doth Love speak!"
"Oh, Cissy, I want you to promise me to come in and see him to-night,"
pleaded Geraldine, humbly. "I am sure you will be charmed with him, he
is so good and so handsome."
"So you said of Mr. Standish," reminded Cissy.
Geraldine blushed, but answered, warmly:
"I know I did; but--Mr. Hawthorne is nicer than the actor--oh, ever so
much nicer! And"--slyly--"you will like him, Cissy, because he is as
much opposed to my going on the stage as you are."
"Then I shall cultivate his acquaintance," declared Cissy, beamingly.
And she was almost as anxious for his coming that night as Geraldine
was herself.
But, as we have seen, both were disappointed.
Harry Hawthorne lay ill and suffering at the hospital, and there was no
one to tell Geraldine the story of his accident.
Her young heart was heavy with pain and wonder all the next day, but
still no message came to explain or excuse his failure to keep his
engagement.
Only some fair young girl as loving and tender as our sweet Geraldine,
who has been disappointed as she was, can realize her silent grief that
day as she stood behind the counter, patiently waiting on exacting
customers and trying to seem cheerful and interested when she was
longing to be alone in her own room, to bury her head in the pillow and
have a good, comforting cry.
She was wretched with doubt and suspense.
And only yesterday she had been so wildly happy.
Late in the afternoon Clifford Standish came into the store to buy a
pair of gloves.
He was bright, smiling, and elegant as ever, and chatted gayly with
Geraldine.
"I have some good news for you this evening," he whispered, but the
girl scarcely smiled.
She knew that he would not bring her any tidings of Harry Hawthorne,
and it seemed to her that she cared for nothing else.
How strange is love when it enters the heart as a guest, shutting out
interest in everything else--strange, subtle, sweet, and absorbingly
selfish.
Geraldine forgot how well she had liked the actor, and how she had
quarreled with Cissy for his sake.
His attentions were repugnant to her now, and she wished ardently to be
rid of him.
But her tender, girlish heart reproached her for her fickleness, and
she thought it would seem ungrateful to snub him now.
So she only smiled at him plaintively, assuming an interest she did not
feel.
Bending across the counter, he whispered, so that Cissy could not hear:
"I beg your pardon, but did your new admirer--did he call last night?"
"No-o," faltered the girl, and she could hardly keep the tears from her
eyes.
"Why, that is strange. What prevented him from keeping his engagement?"
"I do not know."
"You have not heard from him?" he exclaimed, in surprise.
"Not a word," she sighed, then added, quickly: "But I don't think he
meant to break his engagement. Perhaps there was a fire, and he had to
go."
"Very likely--but, then, he should have sent you an apology early this
morning."
"Do you think so? Oh, I suppose he will come and explain in person,"
said Geraldine, with assumed indifference.
Another customer bustled up to claim her attention, and he bowed
himself away, secretly exultant over the fact that she was utterly
ignorant of Harry Hawthorne's fate.
"There is no one to come and tell her, and even if it gets into the
papers, she is not likely to read it. A poor working-girl has little
time for reading," he reflected.
Again his evil genius favored him.
When he went for his call on Geraldine that evening, he found a
messenger-boy in the street with a letter for her from the Bellevue
Hospital.
He took the letter from the boy, and gave him a quarter.
"I am going in to see Miss Harding now. I will deliver the letter,"
he said, affably, and the boy, who was in a hurry to get home to his
supper, thanked him for the service, and turned away, rejoicingly.
The triumphant actor hid the letter in his breast, congratulating
himself on having so easily obtained possession of it.
"I am very fortunate, for had the fickle little beauty received it, all
would have been explained between them."
Geraldine came to the door to receive him, and he saw at once how much
she had changed toward him by the simple fact that she had not adorned
herself in her best gown, as usual, but wore her simple shop-gown of
black serge.
She did not care whether she looked fair to him or not, and he quickly
realized it, for he was an adept in reading the complex nature of
woman. But he hid his chagrin, saying, admiringly:
"Perhaps you do not realize how pretty and demure you look in that
black gown."
"Thank you," Geraldine said, listlessly, as she sank into a chair
opposite, and tried to seem friendly and interested.
CHAPTER VIII.
"A GIRL HAS A RIGHT TO CHANGE HER MIND."
"Reprove me not that still I change
With every passing hour,
For glorious nature gives me leave,
In wave and cloud and flower.
And you and all the world would do--
It all but dared--the same;
True to myself--if false to you
Why should I reck your blame?"
It made Clifford Standish secretly furious to see how near he had come
to losing the charming little beauty on whom he had set his burning
heart, and of whom he had felt so sure but a few days ago.
Her pale and pensive looks, her drooping eyes, her pathetic red mouth,
all told that her heart was far away, and in his heart he cursed
himself for inviting her to go on that fateful excursion to Newburgh,
by which he had almost lost her forever.
But he had one chance now to retrieve his misstep, and he set about
improving it.
"Well, I will tell you the promised good news!" he exclaimed. "I have
at last secured you the wished-for position in my company."
"Oh!" cried Geraldine, starting, and clasping her little hands
convulsively together.
But the exclamation was one of dismay rather than of joy.
His quick ear detected it, but he pretended to misapprehend her, and
continued:
"I knew you would be delighted to hear it."
"Ye-es," she faltered, weakly; then bracing herself to escape the
engagement. "But--but--perhaps I ought not to go on the stage. Cissy is
opposed to it."
"Yes, I know--you told me that at first, but you said, also, that you
did not care for her opinions--that you should do as you pleased."
Geraldine could not contradict him. It was perfectly true.
She sat speechless and embarrassed, feeling like a little bird caught
in the fowler's net, while he continued, smoothly:
"Don't be afraid of Miss Carroll's displeasure. It's only envy and
jealousy."
Geraldine, in her resentment against Cissy, had said this to him, too,
and she comprehended that he was cleverly turning her own weapons
against her now. She could only sit mute and miserable, with a forced
smile that was more pathetic than tears.
"'If I could leave this smile,' she said,
'And take a moan upon my mouth,
And let my tears run smooth,
It were the happier way,' she said."
Clifford Standish continued:
"The position offered you is not as good as I could wish, but I shall
manage to get you a promotion soon. Our soubrette is going to leave,
and you can take her place as soon as you wish."
It was strange how tenaciously Geraldine's mind clung to the dread of
Harry Hawthorne's disapproval. She did not wish to go on the stage now,
and was eager for a loophole to escape.
"Oh, I don't think I'd like to take a soubrette's place," she cried.
"But last week you said you wouldn't mind it."
"Oh, why do you keep throwing up things I said last week?" she burst
out, pettishly.
"Do you wish to forget them so soon, Miss Harding? Then you must be
very fickle-minded, and I am sorry that I had that poor soubrette
discharged for your sake!"
"For my sake! Oh-h-oh!"
"Why, certainly; because you were so anxious for a place, and I wished
to please you above all things," tenderly; "and, of course, you know
the manager dare not refuse anything reasonable that I ask, so I
persuaded him to discharge poor Bettina."
"Oh, let her keep the place, do! It was cruel to turn her off."
"It is too late to replace her now. She has accepted an offer from a
company that is going to remain in New York, and I shall have no end of
trouble getting another girl to fill the place. I thought you wanted
the chance so badly," reproachfully.
Geraldine flushed crimson, and the tears she had been fighting back
brimmed over in her eyes.
"Oh, I have acted abominably," she sobbed; "but--but--a girl has a
right to change her mind, hasn't she?"
"Certainly, if she doesn't mind putting every one out," stiffly.
He rose as if to go, walked to the door as if in anger, then relented,
and stood looking back with intense eyes that compelled her to look at
him deprecatingly.
Having gained this point, he said, gently:
"We are going on the road with our company in one week, and as our
soubrette can stay with us a few days longer, I'll give you three days
to make up your mind whether you will take the place or not. For who
knows but that you will change your mind again?" and still smiling
kindly at her, he quoted:
"'Tis helpless woman's right divine,
Her dearest right--Caprice!"
"Please go now," she answered, burying her face in her hands.
"I am going now, but I shall come back to-morrow evening, and hope to
find you in a brighter mood," he answered, going out softly and closing
the door.
He had purposely refrained from speaking of Harry Hawthorne, but he
guessed well that it was he who had influenced her against the stage.
"Curse his meddling! But it shall avail him nothing. I shall conquer
in the end. I have sworn to make her mine, and mine she shall be, the
coquettish little darling," he muttered, resolutely.
The days came and went, while Geraldine waited patiently for the coming
of Harry Hawthorne--waited all in vain, for he continued very ill at
the hospital, and the note he had dictated to a nurse acquainting her
with his accident she never received. It had fallen into the hands of
his triumphant rival, Standish, who kept it hidden safely from that
yearning young heart.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ACTOR MAKES HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES.
"Go! let me pray, pray to forget thee!
Woe worth the day, false one, I met thee!
Ever till then, careless and free, love,
Never again thus shall I be, love.
Through my soul's sleep thine the voice breaking,
Long shall I weep, weep its awaking,
Weep for the day when first I met thee,
Then let me pray, pray to forget thee!"
Two more days passed by, and still Geraldine heard nothing of Harry
Hawthorne.
"Is it not strange--the way he has acted?" she said, at last, to Cissy,
who answered:
"Yes; he has behaved so shabbily that you ought to put him out of your
thoughts, dear."
"Oh, Cissy, do you believe that he never meant to come? That he was
unworthy?" almost piteously.
"I'm afraid so, Geraldine, for even if something had happened to keep
him away that evening, he has had ample time to explain and apologize
since then; but he has not done so, and it looks as if he was a sad
flirt, and only amused himself with you for the time, without giving
you another thought since he left you."
Cissy believed what she said, and meant only kindness, but her frank
words quivered like a thorn in Geraldine's heart.
Oh, how could she think of him as an unprincipled flirt, awakening an
interest in a young girl's heart only for his own amusement?
But still she knew that such men existed, and that many broken hearts
lay at their door.
The dread that Harry Hawthorne might be one of these heartless men
awoke to life within her a fierce and burning pride.
"No man shall break my heart. I will forget Harry Hawthorne," she
vowed, bitterly, to herself; and when the actor came that night, he
found her bright and gay as of yore. She had put on over her tortured
heart that mask of smiles which many a woman wears through life to
deceive a carping world.
"'I have a smiling face,' she said,
'I have jest for all I meet,
I have a garland for my head,
And all its flowers are sweet,
And so you call me gay,' she said.
"'Behind no prison grate,' she said,
'Which slurs the sunshine half a mile,
Live captives so uncomforted
As souls behind a smile.
God's pity let us pray,' she said."
Clifford Standish was charmed with her new mood. He saw that a reaction
had begun.
"I am glad to see you so happy, for I am sure that you have decided to
go on the road with us," he exclaimed, coaxingly.
She shook her head, and laughed, gayly:
"Do not be too sure. You know you have given me until Sunday night to
decide."
"But that is not far off--only twenty-four hours," he said, with a
smile, for he felt sure of victory. As she made no reply, he continued:
"I have made a charming invitation for you for Sunday afternoon. Some
of the leading members of our company are going to skate in the park
to-morrow--you know this cold snap has frozen the lake beautifully--and
they want me to bring you. Will you come?"
"Yes," replied Geraldine, quickly, glad of a diversion for Sunday
afternoon, so that she need not mope alone with her miserable thoughts
of how Harry Hawthorne had flirted with her for his own amusement.
For she had begun to lose faith in her handsome lover now. The leaven
of Cissy's words had worked steadily in her mind.
And a cruel self-shame that she had given her love in vain was at war
with the tenderness of her heart.
"Thank you. I am so glad you will go. I know you will like the trip and
the company," he said; then, in a changed tone: "By the way, did that
fireman ever keep his promise to call on you?"
"No," she answered, carelessly.
"Have you heard anything about him?"
"No, indeed, and I had almost forgotten the man until you recalled him
to my mind," she returned, fibbing unblushingly.
"Ah! Then you will not mind what I have to tell you?" deprecatingly.
"Of course not. What is it?" carelessly.
"Well, of course, I thought it rude and strange his not keeping his
appointment with you, and thinking something might have happened to
the fellow, as you feared, I made some indirect inquiries at the
engine-house, and found that he had returned to Newburgh the same day
he brought you back to New York."
"Indeed?" she returned, with a paling cheek, whose pallor she could not
control.
"Yes, he had gone back, but I did not like to tell you the truth. I
waited for developments. But, to-day, I met Mrs. Stansbury on the
street, and she told me something--well, see if you can guess?"
"Something very amusing, no doubt," she replied, carelessly.
"She told me she had just returned from Newburgh, and that she had left
Hawthorne there, courting her sister, Daisy Odell. It seemed that he
had been in love with the pretty little black-eyed thing some time,
and fearing that she might get jealous of the attentions he had to pay
you the day you were thrown on his care by my accidental desertion, he
returned to make his peace with her, and has been lingering by her side
ever since. Mrs. Stansbury was vastly amused over it all, and said to
me, 'He flirted shockingly with that pretty little salesgirl, didn't
he? but I hope she knew it was only fun! Give my love to her when you
see her again!'"
Geraldine treated the matter with a seeming careless indifference, but,
oh! the tumult of wounded love and pride that raged within her girlish
breast!
"I was so fond of that woman, and she was only kind to me for the sake
of a little amusement," she thought, with hot and burning cheeks at
his tone when he repeated Mrs. Stansbury's contemptuous epithet, "that
little salesgirl!"
To herself she said, angrily:
"I will not be a poor salesgirl any longer, to be twitted with my
humble position in life. I will become an actress, and my talents will
make me famous, so that these people will go to see me act, and be
proud to say, 'I knew her once, but she is so rich and grand now that
she would not stoop to renew the acquaintance.' As for Harry Hawthorne,
who knows but that I may be able to pay him back some day for the
slight he put on me! I am no longer grateful to him for saving my life;
for why should he have saved it, only to plant a thorn in my heart?"
But she did not tell Cissy what the actor had told her about Harry
Hawthorne. She could not bear to confess her humiliation.
But she went with Standish to the park the next day, and while skating
on the lake a vision of beauty and grace that attracted the eyes of
admiring hundreds, she told him that she had decided to go with the
company on the road.
"Although Cissy is very angry with me, and vows that I will repent it
in dust and ashes," she added, uneasily.
"Don't listen to her croaking. She only envies your good fortune," he
returned, reassuringly. "Why, you will soon be rich and famous, Miss
Harding, for your beauty and talent will win you rapid promotion on the
boards. Do you see how all those strangers have watched you on the ice
to-day? It is because your face has already won you the sobriquet of
'the prettiest salesgirl in New York.' Soon it will be changed to 'the
prettiest actress on the stage.' Will not that sound better?"
CHAPTER X.
A CRUEL DISAPPOINTMENT.
"Love, dear friend, is a sacred thing!
Love is not tinsel, silver or gold!
Love is a fragment of Heaven's own gate,
Broken in halves by God's hand, Fate,
And given two kindred spirits to hold
Who would colonize in our earth unknown,
'Tis whispered them: 'You may be thrown
Far apart--'"
Harry Hawthorne remained in the Bellevue Hospital ten days only, it
having been discovered that his injuries were not internal, as at first
feared.
His temporary unconsciousness had resulted from the severe cut on his
head, and as this healed nicely, he grew better, and asked for his
discharge from the hospital. Indeed, he would have recovered sooner
but for a painful suspense and anxiety that augmented fever and
restlessness.
The young fireman had been so deeply smitten by the charms of pretty
Geraldine, that during his enforced confinement, the thought of her had
never been absent from his mind. Love had sprung to life full grown
within his breast.
When he was discharged from the hospital, he could not wait until
evening to call on her. The ready excuse of the need of a pair of
gloves took him to O'Neill's.
He did not wear his fireman's dress, but attired himself in an elegant
suit of clothes, such as gentlemen wear to business. Thus arrayed,
and looking as much the aristocrat as any Fifth avenue millionaire,
he entered the store and went at once to the glove counter, his heart
throbbing wildly at thought of seeing Geraldine again, and making an
appointment to call on her that evening.
A whole row of smiling, pretty girls confronted him, but among them
all he could not see his heart's darling, the lode-star of his
dreams--sweet Geraldine.
He accosted the nearest girl--a plump, gray-eyed beauty--who
fortunately proved to be Miss Carroll.
"I wish to have Miss Harding show me some gloves. Is she here?"
Cissy Carroll shook her dark head, and answered:
"Geraldine does not attend here any more. Can I show you the gloves?"
"If you please," he replied, and as she placed them before him, he took
a pair, mechanically, in his shapely hand, but continued:
"I beg your pardon, but has Miss Harding gone to another store? She is
a friend of mine. I wish to see her very much."
"Your name?" asked Cissy, with a quick suspicion of the truth, for he
realized in his person Geraldine's description.
"I am Harry Hawthorne."
"I thought so. And I am Miss Carroll. Perhaps you have heard Geraldine
speak of me?"
He smiled, and answered:
"Yes, as her 'chum Cissy.' She told me, also, that you roomed together."
"We did--but Geraldine has left me now."
She read the palpable disappointment on his face, and added, quickly:
"She had a talent for acting, and has gone upon the stage."
She saw him start as if she had struck him a blow in the face, and he
grew lividly pale, as he asked:
"At what theatre?"
"Oh, she has left New York, and gone on the road with a stock
company--the one that played 'Hearts and Homes' two weeks here. You may
remember Clifford Standish, the leading man. He procured the situation
for Geraldine."
Then, as she saw from his face that he was taking it quite hard, she
added, with womanly curiosity:
"But how happens it that you are not acquainted with these facts?
The papers had some very flattering paragraphs about the beautiful
salesgirl who had left a New York store to adopt a stage career."
"I--I--haven't read the papers," he murmured, faintly, like one
recovering from a blow.
"Oh, then you must have been away from New York--and poor Geraldine
expecting you to call every evening. Why didn't you let her know?"
"I haven't been away from the city, Miss Carroll."
"Then why did you act toward her so shabbily?"
"Shabbily! Why I had a note written to her from the hospital,
explaining that an accident had overturned my engine and seriously
wounded me. I've been in Bellevue Hospital ten days, Miss Carroll.
Look," and he showed her the scar on his head.
"Oh, it's a wonder you were not killed," said the girl, sympathetically.
"They thought I was at first, for I didn't recover consciousness until
the next day. Then, as soon as I could think clearly at all, I thought
of my broken engagement of the evening before, and wondered what
she would think of me. I persuaded the nurse to write a little note
for me, as I was too shaky myself, and sent it by the messenger-boy
at the hospital. I hoped she would write me a line of sympathy, and
that--perhaps--she might even be sorry enough to come and see me there.
But I never received a word!"
"She did not receive your note. Your failure to come was a mystery to
her always, Mr. Hawthorne."
"Why, that is very strange. I'll go back to the hospital and see that
messenger. But--will you give me her address now?" eagerly. "I will
write to her and explain."
Cissy blushed vividly, and said:
"I am sorry that I cannot, but the fact is I don't know where she is,
for--we parted in anger, vowing to have no more to do with each other.
I disliked Clifford Standish, and tried to persuade her not to go on
the stage. She went in defiance of my advice--so she has not written to
me."
CHAPTER XI.
A CRUSHING SORROW.
"Till now thy soul hath been
All glad and gay;
Bid it arise and look
At grief to-day!
For now life's stream has reached
A deep, dark sea,
And sorrow, dim and crowned,
Is waiting thee."
Miss Carroll was sorry for the young fireman, as she saw how pale and
troubled his handsome face became at her tidings.
She exclaimed, sympathetically:
"Maybe Geraldine will get over her anger and write to me yet. She never
stays angry long at a time. So, if she writes, I'll let you know."
"Thank you, a hundred times over," gratefully, "and may I call on you
sometimes, to inquire?"
"Certainly," replied Cissy, who liked him as much as she had despised
the actor. Almost every one has antipathies. The actor was one of
Cissy's, no doubt.
Harry Hawthorne thanked her for her courtesy, paid for his gloves, and
walked away with such a princely air that all the pretty salesgirls
followed his exit with admiring eyes, and there was a swelling murmur
of ejaculations:
"Oh, what a handsome fellow!"
"Isn't he perfectly magnif'?"
"Who is he, Cissy? A Fifth avenue millionaire?"
"Oh, no, indeed, girls; don't lose your wits! He's a fireman at the
Ludlow street engine-house, that's all."
"Oh, then he must be a prince in disguise; and, come to think of it,
millionaires are not usually good-looking, any way. I might have
known he was poor, from his beauty. He was talking to you about Jerry
Harding, wasn't he? Is she his sweetheart?"
"Perhaps so. Don't bother me! I don't know," laughed Cissy, cutting
short their merry chatter.
Meanwhile the object of their admiration hurried away and returned to
the hospital.
He had no trouble in finding the messenger-boy who had taken his note
to Geraldine, and the youth, unconscious of having done wrong, very
readily admitted that he had given the note to a gentleman, who said he
was going in, and had offered to hand the letter to the lady.
"No harm done, I hope, sir?" he said, regretfully.
"Yes, more harm than you know. The man kept the letter, so the young
lady never received it. It was something very important, too; and now
she has gone away, and the mischief you did can never be undone."
"Oh, my! what a pity!" exclaimed the boy, readily guessing that
here was a broken-off love affair. He looked pityingly at Hawthorne
a minute, then continued: "I'm very sorry I made such a mistake. I
thought the fellow was a gentleman. But I know him, and I'll get even
with him for that trick--you see if I don't!"
"Who was he, Rob?"
"Why, that Standish that plays in 'Hearts and Homes.' An elegant swell,
don't you know? Gave me a quarter, like a lord. But I'll hunt him up,
and get back that letter."
"You are too late, Rob. He has gone on the road with his company."
"Whew! And the lady gone, too, with him?"
"Yes."
"Oh, what a kettle of fish! Of my mixing, too! Indeed, Mr. Hawthorne,
I'm sorry; and, if I ever get a chance, I'll do that fellow up for his
treachery, the villain!" cried the boy, so earnestly that the listener
could but smile, for he had no faith in the possibility of such an
event taking place.
He walked away, bitter at heart over the actor's treachery.
"He kept that letter, and managed to make trouble between us somehow,
the cunning wretch!" he mused, sadly enough, for the case looked
hopeless now.
Standish, having gained such a signal advantage over him in taking
pretty Geraldine away, would follow it up by wedding her before his
return.
"If I could find out where she is on the road, I might still write and
explain all," he thought, with a gleam of hope that quickly faded as he
recalled the treacherous nature of his rival.
"If I wrote to her, he would intercept my letter. He will be on the
watch for that. There is no use trying and hoping. I have lost her
forever--bonny, brown-eyed Geraldine!" he sighed, hopelessly.
As he returned to his work at the engine-house, he felt as if he had
just closed the coffin-lid over a well-beloved face.
Such hopes and dreams as had come to him since he met fair Geraldine
were hard to relinquish; they had brought such new brightness into his
prosaic life; but he felt that all was over now.
True, he felt that he had made a strong impression on the girl's heart,
but his rival would soon teach her to forget that he had ever existed.
But in a few days hope began unconsciously to reassert itself. He
decided to call on Cecilia Carroll to inquire if she had any news.
He went that evening, and she told him that Geraldine had not written
yet.
"But I found out from a manager the proposed route of the company, and
I have written to her, and told her about you," she added, out of the
kindness of her heart.
"Clifford Standish will take good care that she never receives
your letter," he said, bitterly, as he told her how the actor had
intercepted the note he had sent to Geraldine.
"I suspected as much, the grand villain!" cried Cissy, indignantly. "So
now I shall write to her again and expose him!"
She did so, but no answer came to either of her letters.
Clifford Standish was too wily to permit Geraldine to receive them. He
easily got possession of her mail, and destroyed it without a pang of
remorse at his selfish heart.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LETTER THAT NEVER CAME.
"Write me a letter, my dear old friend,
I love you more and more,
As farther apart we drift, dear heart,
And nearer the other shore.
The dear old loves and the dear old days
Are a balm to life's regret;
It's easy to bear the worry and care
If the old friends love us yet."
Yes, pretty Geraldine, piqued and unhappy over her cruel disappointment
in love, had joined the Clemens Company, the manager of which was also
one of the actors--Cameron Clemens. He played the clever villain in
"Hearts and Homes," his special play, while Clifford Standish took the
hero's part.
Geraldine threw her whole heart into her work, and succeeded so well
that she was promoted in a week, owing to the illness and withdrawal
of the second lady from the company. It was the part of an _ingenue_,
which just suited Geraldine's youth and _naivette_. She could act it to
perfection without laying aside her pretty naturalness of manner.
They traveled from town to town, staying just a night or two in each
place, usually drawing full houses, and Geraldine proved a great
attraction, winning always so much admiration that it was a wonder her
pretty little head was not turned by flattery.
It might have been had not her heart been so sore over its brief,
broken love-dream.
To have known a man but two brief, bright, happy days, and not be able
to forget him, it was absurd, she thought, in desperate rebellion
against her own heart.
And yet, through the busy weeks of travel, study, and acting, Harry
Hawthorne's image staid in her mind, and his voice rang through her
dreams, sweet and low and tender as it had always been to her whenever
he spoke.
In her waking hours she knew him light and false; in her dreams he was
always tender and true, and inexpressibly dear.
"Last night in my deep sleep I dreamed of you--
Again the old love woke in me and thrived
On looks of fire, on kisses, and sweet words
Like silver waters purling in a stream--
A dream--a dream!"
Through all the changing days in which the silent struggle against a
hopeless love went on in her young heart, Clifford Standish was ever
near, patient, tender, devoted, telling her with his yearning eyes the
love she was not ready to listen to yet.
And in spite of herself, Geraldine found a subtle comfort in his
devotion.
It was a balm of healing to her proud heart, so deeply wounded by Harry
Hawthorne's trifling.
Many hearts have been caught in the rebound in this fashion, many true
loves won.
True, there are many proud ones who do not prize a love they can only
have because it has been scornfully refused by another.
They will say, resentfully:
"I will not accept a love that is given me only because it was left by
one who did not prize it."
Others, more humble, will gladly accept the grateful love of a wounded
heart that finds consolation in their tenderness.
Clifford Standish, madly in love with Geraldine, was glad to accept
such crumbs of love as might fall to him from the royal feast that had
been spread for Harry Hawthorne.
So he hovered by her side, he paid her the most delicate attentions,
anticipating every wish, and found ample reward as he saw himself
gaining in her grateful regard.
At the same time the arch-traitor was intercepting the few letters that
came to her, and the ones she wrote to Miss Carroll.
For Geraldine had long ago gotten over her pet with her friend, since
she know in her heart how dear she was to Cissy, and that the girl had
advised her for her own good.
Geraldine had found out that the career of an actress--even a young,
pretty, and popular one--is not always strewn with roses.
She had to study hard, and she did not enjoy traveling all day, or
even half a day, and then appearing on the boards at night. Sometimes
the hotel accommodations of country towns where they stopped over were
wretchedly indifferent. Sometimes her head ached miserably, but she
must appear on the boards, all the same. And the free-and-easy ways of
some of the company did not please the fastidious taste of the girl.
Now and then she found her thoughts returning to the old days behind
the counter at O'Neill's with Cissy and the other girls, with an almost
pathetic yearning. Secretly she longed to be back again.
How she wished that Cissy would write to her now, and beg her to
return, so that she might have an excuse for following the dictates of
her heart.
At last, believing that Cissy was too proud and stubborn to write
first, she penned her a long, affectionate letter, through which
breathed an underline of repentance and regret that her chum would be
sure to answer it by writing:
"Come home, dear. I told you that you would get sick of being an
actress."
But Geraldine was too weary and heart-sick to care for a hundred
"I-told-you-so's" from the triumphant Cissy. What did it matter so that
she got back to her dear old chum again and their cozy little rooms,
and even to what she had once called her slavery behind the counter.
She recalled what Harry Hawthorne had told her about it being a slavery
of the stage, too; then put the thought from her with an impatient sigh.
"What do I care what he said about it?" indignantly, then sighing,
"even though I have found it to be, alas, too true!"
She wrote her letter to Cissy, and after that her heart felt lighter.
She knew her chum would be glad to get the letter--glad to have her
back.
"Dear, I tried to write you such a letter
As would tell you all my heart to-day.
Written Love is poor; one word were better!
Easier, too, a thousand times to say.
"I can tell you all; fears, doubts unheeding,
While I can be near you, hold your hand,
Looking right into your eyes and reading
Reassurance that you understand.
"Yet I wrote it through, then lingered, thinking
Of its reaching you what hour, what day,
Till I felt my heart and courage sinking
With a strange, new, wondering dismay.
"'Will my letter fall,' I wondered, sadly,
'On her mood like some discordant tone,
Or be welcomed tenderly and gladly?
Will she be with others, or alone?
"It may find her too absorbed to read it,
Save with hurried glance and careless air;
Sad and weary, she may scarcely heed it;
Gay and happy, she may hardly care.
"If perhaps now, while my tears are falling,
She is dreaming quietly alone,
She will hear my love's far echo calling,
Feel my spirit drawing near her own.
"Wondering at the strange, mysterious power
That has touched her heart, then she will say:
'Some one whom I love this very hour
Thinks of me, and loves me far away.'"
Poor Geraldine! what a hopeless waiting she had for the letter that
never came!
How could he bear the wistful light in her sad brown eyes, the wretch
who had robbed her young life of happiness?
In his keeping rested the letters of the two fond girls to each
other--the letters that would have brought happiness to three sad
hearts.
And the weeks slipped into months while they echoed in their souls the
poet's plaint:
"The solemn Sea of Silence lies between us;
I know thou livest and thou lovest me;
And yet I wish some white ship would come sailing
Across the ocean bearing news of thee.
"The dead calm awes me with its awful stillness,
And anxious doubts and fears disturb my breast.
I only ask some little wave of language
To stir this vast infinitude of rest.
"Too deep the language which the spirit utters;
Too vast the knowledge which my soul hath stirred.
Send some white ship across the Sea of Silence,
And interrupt its utterance with a word."
It was two months now since they had gone upon the road, but not a
word had Geraldine received. It seemed to her as if the past days were
a dream, so different was her life now--all whirl, confusion, and
excitement.
Once she had thought this would be charming. Now she found it the
reverse.
How glad she was to hear that the company would go back to New York in
time for Christmas. She was so tired of the West, where they had been
all these weeks.
When they were on their homeward way, they stopped over for a night at
a pretty West Virginia town a few hundred miles from New York.
They had come straight through from Chicago, and the stop-over was very
agreeable to the weary members of the company.
They arrived in the afternoon, and the tired travelers, after resting a
while at their romantic hotel on the banks of the beautiful Greenbrier
River, set out to explore the little town of Alderson, first hurrying
to the post-office for their letters, which they expected to be
awaiting them there.
Geraldine did not expect any mail, poor girl! She waited at the door
while Clifford Standish went in and came out with a little budget for
himself.
"Nothing for you, Geraldine. It seems that Miss Carroll is still
unforgiving," he laughed, without noting the sensitive quiver of her
scarlet lips.
They walked on, and she pretended to be absorbed in contemplation of
the beautiful mountain scenery, while he ran over his letters.
"Let us cross the railroad and walk on the bridge over there," she
said, at last.
It was a beautiful sunny day, very calm and mild for December. They
loitered on the broad bridge that spanned the romantic river between
the two towns, Alderson and North Alderson, and while she watched the
lapsing river and the mountain peaks against the clear blue sky, he
read to her bits of his letters from New York.
"Here's one that will interest you," he laughed, meaningly, and read:
"'Well, old fellow, there's nothing that I know in the way of
interesting news just now, unless that a girl you used to be sweet on
is going to be married to-morrow. It's little Daisy Odell, you know,
of Newburgh. She's been visiting a married sister here, and caught a
beau. He's a fireman named Harry Hawthorne, a big, handsome fellow,
the hero of several fires. The marriage will take place at Mrs.
Stansbury's, and I've an invitation to it.'"
He looked from the letter to her face, and saw that she was deadly pale
and grief-stricken.
"Oh, will you let me read that for myself?" she gasped, as if she could
scarcely believe him.
"Why, certainly," he answered, but as he was handing her the crumpled
sheet, the wind caught it somehow, and fluttered it beyond reach over
the rail and down into the river.
"Oh! oh! oh!" he cried, with pretended dismay, but his outstretched
hand could not grasp it.
"It's gone; but no matter--the news must be true, for Charlie Butler
wrote it, and he always tells the truth," he said, carelessly.
And how was the unsuspecting girl to know that no such words were
written in the letter, and that it was from a woman, instead of Charlie
Butler?
CHAPTER XIII.
TORTURED TO MADNESS.
"So the truth's out. I'll grasp it like a snake;
It will not slay me. My heart shall not break.
"I was so happy I could not make him blest!
So falsely dreamed I was his first and best!
"He'll keep that other woman from my sight;
I know not if her face be foul or bright;
I only know that it is his delight."
Geraldine was proud, very proud--and she thought she had quite overcome
her hopeless love for Harry Hawthorne.
But the sudden, unexpected news of his marriage, that she never thought
of doubting, struck her with the suddenness of an awful blow, beating
down pride and reserve at one terrible stroke.
She realized all at once that her heart had still kept alive a little
fire of hope burning before the shrine of its unacknowledged love. The
quenching of this spark of hope was almost like the going out of life
itself.
The other members of the party had gone on to the other side of the
bridge and she was alone with Clifford Standish--alone with the agony
of soul that blanched her sweet face to death-like pallor, and made her
clutch at the rails, gasping out that she was ill, dying.
The arch-villain caught her swaying form and held it tenderly in his
arms, while her white, unconscious face rested against his shoulder.
Some country people walking over the bridge at that moment stared in
amazement, and going on to town, reported that, "those actor-folks were
carrying on dreadful on the bridge--hugging right before folks."
But neither of the two participants was troubled over this sensation,
Geraldine being unconscious, and Standish too much absorbed in her to
heed aught else.
In a minute or two she sighed and opened her eyes.
"Oh!" she cried, as she met his eyes gazing deep into hers, and tried
to struggle from his clasp.
"Wait. You cannot stand alone yet," he said, tenderly, then murmured:
"Oh, Geraldine, it breaks my heart to find that you loved him,
that low fireman, so unworthy of you; while I--I--have worshiped
you ever since the hour I first saw you behind the counter, so
bright and beautiful. I have been trying to win you ever since, and
hoped--vainly hoped, as I see now--that I was succeeding. Oh, how did
he succeed--this man you saw but a few hours--in winning your love?"
She struggled from his clasp, her strength returning, her face hot with
blushes of fierce shame.
"It--it--is not true that I love him--no, no, no!" she faltered, wildly.
"But, my dearest girl, you fainted when you heard of his marriage."
"Oh, no, it was not that. I was tired, ill--from traveling, you know,"
cried poor Geraldine, who would have died rather than admit the truth
which her pale, pale cheeks and trembling lips told all too plainly by
their mute despair.
But her denial suited the actor's purpose, and he cried, gladly:
"Oh, I am so happy to hear you say you did not care for him. I
feared--feared--that your kindness to me, your sweet smiles and ready
acceptance of my attentions were only cruel coquetry."
"Oh, no, no," she murmured, helplessly, feeling herself drawn to him by
every word he said.
Had she given him cause, then, to believe she meant to accept him?
He caught her hand, and continued, fondly, eagerly:
"Oh, Geraldine, dare I hope you care for me after all? That you will
let me love you, and you love me a little in return? Will you--be my
wife?"
He saw her shudder as with a mortal chill; then pride came to her aid.
She let him keep the hand he had taken, and she answered, faintly:
"Yes."
And then a great horror of what she had promised rushed over her. How
could she be his wife when she did not love him? Such a marriage would
be sacrilege!
Her head drooped heavily, and her eyes were half-closed as she listened
despairingly to the words of grateful joy he poured out. Not one of
them found an echo in her heart.
Until now she had been grateful to him for his kindness, but a sudden
aversion took root in her heart now, and she felt that she would rather
die than be his wife.
But, to save her life, she could not have opened her lips to take back
her promise.
She knew how angry he would be, how he would accuse her of trifling and
coquetry. She could not bring down on herself the weight of his wrath.
But to the day of her death Geraldine would never forget that hour on
the bridge at Alderson--that hour into whose short compass were crowded
so much pain and regret that she longed for death to end her misery.
Mechanically she heard the whistle of an approaching train coming over
the track at the end of the bridge. The rumble and roar blent with the
rush of the river in her ears as she said, wearily:
"Let us return to the hotel. I--am--so--tired!"
Alas, poor girl! it was a tired heart!
They walked back toward the railroad, and the train came rushing on
with a thunderous roar.
There was not one thought of suicide in her mind--she had always
thought it a weak and cowardly act--but somehow a mad longing for
death--because life was so bitter--seized on unhappy Geraldine.
The train was so close that they must wait for it to pass before they
could cross.
She darted suddenly from the side of Standish and threw herself face
downward across the trembling rails.
CHAPTER XIV.
A THEATRE PARTY.
"Time flies. The swift hours hurry by
And speed us on to untried ways;
New seasons ripen, perish, die,
And yet _love stays_!
The old, old love--like sweet at first,
At last like bitter wine--
I know not if it blest or curst
Thy life and mine."
Harry Hawthorne called on Miss Carroll several times, but she always
had the same discouraging story to tell--no answer from Geraldine to
the letters she had written.
He gave up going at last, and tried to resign himself to his cruel
disappointment.
"If she ever cared for me in the least, that villain Standish with his
infernal arts, has turned her against me forever. But let him look out
for himself if he ever returns to New York. We shall have a reckoning
then, over my letter to Geraldine that he intercepted," he said to
himself, bitterly and often.
Those were dreary days to the young fireman after he came out of the
hospital and found Geraldine gone. People had always called him cold
and unsocial somehow, and he became more reticent than ever now, going
nowhere at all except when Captain Stansbury fairly dragged him to the
house.
Mrs. Stansbury, as soon as she returned from Newburgh, had been anxious
to renew her acquaintance with Geraldine, but meeting Standish on the
street one day and asking after her, she was told that the young girl
had lost her position at O'Neill's because of her trip to Newburgh and
had gone back to her country home in consequence.
"Oh, I am so sorry, for I wished to cultivate her acquaintance, she was
such a lovely girl!" the good-natured young woman said, regretfully:
"Yes, very pretty, but a shocking flirt! I got acquainted with her on
the street by a handkerchief flirtation," laughed the actor, and he
saw that the leaven worked. Mrs. Stansbury did not approve of forward
girls, and her eagerness to see more of pretty Geraldine was at once
abated.
She knew no better until weeks later, when her husband brought
Hawthorne home for dinner, and discussing the pleasant times they had
had at Newburgh, he told her of Geraldine's going on the stage with
Standish.
Little by little all came out, and she exclaimed:
"Mr. Standish must have lied to me in saying that she had lost her
place and gone home to the country, and that he made her acquaintance
by a street flirtation."
"It was cruelly false," answered Hawthorne, who had heard from Cissy
the whole story of the beginning of the acquaintance of the wily actor
and the pretty shop-girl. He continued:
"He wished to prevent your further association with Geraldine, so as to
keep her away from me."
"And he really intercepted your letter to her? I did not dream he was
such a villain."
"He shall answer to me for that injury when we meet again," he said, so
sternly that she saw that he was in bitter earnest.
She admired him for his manly resentment, and said, cordially:
"I do not blame you for wishing to punish him. Any manly man would do
likewise. As for Geraldine, when she learns of his perfidy, she will
turn from him in disgust."
"Unless she has learned to love the villain. Women are so faithful in
their love even when the object is unworthy," he sighed.
Changing the subject, she continued:
"Do you know that Sister Daisy is to be married the week before
Christmas?"
"Your husband told me."
"Yes? Well, the bridal party are to spend Christmas with me. The other
girls--Carrie and Consuelo--are coming, too. I intend to have a theatre
party on Christmas Eve--a box to ourselves--and I want you to join us,
won't you? And bring some pretty girl with you, for my sisters will
have their beaus."
"I don't know any girl," he began, then suddenly remembered pretty
Cissy Carroll.
"Oh, yes, I'll join the party if I can get leave. And there's a girl I
know--Miss Carroll--the very intimate friend of pretty Geraldine. I'll
bring her, if she will accept an invitation."
"Very well, and you may take me to call on her in the meanwhile, and
then I can ask her to the dance I'm going to give the girls," replied
amiable Mrs. Stansbury.
And so it was arranged that Cissy made the acquaintance of the
Stansbury clique, and fell in love with them as deeply as Geraldine had
done.
And on Christmas Eve they all filled a box at the theatre--and a
merry party they were, for even Harry Hawthorne unbent from the grave
reserve that was habitual to him of late, and tried to make himself
entertaining to gentle Cissy while the orchestra played and they waited
for the first act.
"What is the play?" asked Hawthorne, for Captain Stansbury had secured
the tickets, and reserved the name of the piece as a surprise to the
party.
"It's 'Laurel Vane'--a society play, by a well-known author--and it is
to be presented for the first time to-night," replied Captain Stansbury.
"I hope it is a good company," said his wife.
"Oh, yes--excellent. The Clemens Company. I know the manager well."
There was a start from all, and Mrs. Stansbury said, nervously:
"But I thought that company was on the road."
"They returned to New York yesterday, with this new play," replied the
captain, who was not in the secret of Clifford Standish's villainy.
The orchestra stopped playing, and the curtain rose.
CHAPTER XV.
GERALDINE WOULD NEVER FORGET ALDERSON.
It thrills one like a draught of rarest wine,
The fine, pure air, the sunshine, and the scene,
The mountains, and the river where it glides,
A silver chain between its banks of green;
And yonder, where the town lies white and low,
On flowery banks so fair beneath the sun,
Oh, Alderson sweet village I may go
Full many a mile, nor find a fairer one!
MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER.
Poor, pretty Geraldine, if she had ever thought of death at all, she
had never dreamed of ending her life like this beneath the wheels of
this great panting, shrieking iron monster, rushing down upon her as
her beautiful form lay across the bright steel rails where she had
thrown herself in the extremity of despair!
But, frantic with hopeless love and terror at the promise she had just
given--the reckless promise of her hand without the heart--reason had
momentarily deserted its throne, and, conscious only of a mad desire to
escape from life's tragedies of woe, she rushed forward in front of the
train, and laid her golden head down upon the pillow of death, like one
lying down to pleasant dreams.
And although her suicidal act was seen by fifty pairs of eyes, it was
too late for even the most heroic hand to snatch her from her impending
doom.
The locomotive was so close upon her the moment she fell before it that
the immense cow-catcher touched her, and--even as the horrified shriek
of Standish rang upon the wintry air--it seemed to draw her beneath the
horrible grinding machine!
Did Heaven, in pity and mercy, intervene to save the rash girl from
the consequences of her mad attempt at self-destruction?
Not once in a hundred cases is a human life saved by being caught and
thrown upward by the projecting cow-catcher in front of the monster
locomotive.
Yet once in a while such a fortunate intervention occurs, and a fatal
disaster is prevented.
To poor, reckless Geraldine, who had placed herself beyond the reach of
human aid, this accident happened, or our story must have ended here
with the tragic close of her short life.
It almost seemed as if invisible angels must have caught up her doomed
form from the track and placed it on the great shovel-like projection
in safety, so miraculous seemed the saving of her life.
And a moment later the train, which had been slowing up as it entered
the town, came to a full stop at the station, and the horrified
engineer, who had been utterly unable to prevent what had seemed to
happen, saw Geraldine's form lying on the platform of the cow-catcher,
where it had rebounded at the first touch, and a cry of thanksgiving
rose from his throat, echoed by a hundred other voices of those who had
seen it all, and who now rushed to the spot in wild haste.
Quiet little Alderson had a sensation that day never to be forgotten
in after years, when the express train rushed into the station bearing
on its very front that form of a beautiful girl driven wild by sorrow,
until she had tried to end her life in this terrible fashion.
What kind and eager hands drew her from her perilous position; what
sympathetic eyes gazed on her beautiful white face as they laid her
down on the platform, quite unconscious, for she had swooned when she
threw herself on the track.
Every doctor in town was speedily on the scene. They vied with each
other in their efforts to restore her to consciousness.
And in a few minutes Geraldine opened her heavy-lidded eyes with a
blank gaze, and saw herself surrounded by a sympathetic, though curious
crowd, and, as in a dream, heard Clifford Standish eagerly explaining
to the people:
"Oh, no, indeed; you are mistaken. It was not an attempt at suicide;
it was only a fool-hardy attempt to cross the track before the engine.
She declared that she could do it safely, and dared me to follow her,
darting from my side before I could restrain her, for I would not have
permitted the rash venture otherwise. Still, I believe she would have
accomplished the feat and cleared the track by a hair's breadth, only
that her foot slipped and threw her down at that fatal moment."
Bending down to Geraldine's ear, he whispered, warningly:
"Do not contradict what I have told them, or they may put you in prison
for attempted suicide, as they do in New York."
The people thought he was her lover, whispering to her of his joy at
her safety, and in a moment he confirmed the belief by saying aloud:
"She would be distressed if any one accused her of trying to kill
herself, for she is one of the happiest girls in the world. In fact,
while we were standing on the bridge she had promised to marry me."
"Yes, I say him hugging her on the bridge, myself," said the old
countryman who had passed them, and a smile went around, and then a
cheer for the fair young life saved for a happy wedded future.
They carried her to the hotel that was but a few yards away, and it was
found that she had sustained some bruises on her side, that was all.
She would be able to go on with the company.
And a great revulsion of feeling took place in her mind--joy that her
life was spared, horror at the momentary insanity that had driven her
to that awful deed. Life grew sweet again, in spite of her great sorrow.
When the sympathetic women left her alone that evening in her room, she
knelt down in a passion of repentance, and prayed God to forgive her
for her great sin in trying to throw away the life He had given.
And she prayed Heaven to help her to forget Harry Hawthorne, and to
love Clifford Standish, the man she had promised to marry.
"Surely he is good and true, and deserves my love," she thought, in an
impulse of gratitude to him for the way he had shielded her when the
people talked of suicide. She was ashamed of the truth now--glad for
them to think it had been an accident.
"I will never be so foolish and so wicked again," she thought, in her
keen remorse for her sin.
She spent a wakeful, restless night in spite of the sedatives the kind
Doctor Spicer had administered before he went away. The hotel was so
close to the railroad that she could hear the trains thundering by all
night long, and the sound made her shudder with terror at thought of
the heavy iron wheels that had come so near to crushing out her fair
young life.
She was glad when morning came, and they boarded the train for New York.
She was eager to get away from this place, yet she would never forget
Alderson, with its beautiful mountains, its romantic, winding river,
and the bridge where she had stood with Standish, listening to the
cruel words that had extinguished the last spark of hope in her breast
and driven her mad with despair.
No, she would never forget beautiful Alderson, on the rippling,
winding, singing Greenbrier River, set like an emerald chain between
its romantic banks, overshadowed by wooded mountains, but she would
remember it always with a horror it did not deserve, poor Geraldine,
because of its tragic associations.
CHAPTER XVI.
"CALL PRIDE TO YOUR AID, GERALDINE."
"It is a common fate--a woman's lot--
To waste on one the riches of her soul,
Who takes the wealth she gives him, but cannot
Repay the interest, and much less the whole.
"'Tis a sad gift, that much applauded thing,
A constant heart; for fact doth daily prove
That constancy finds oft a cruel sting,
While fickle natures win the deeper love."
We must return to our description of the scene in the theatre when the
curtain rose on the first act, and the eager eyes of the large audience
turned upon the stage.
The heroine of the play, Laurel Vane, a beautiful girl, left penniless
and alone by the death of her only surviving parent, was discovered
weeping in the shabby room from which she would soon be turned out,
because she had no money to pay her rent.
Enter the handsome villain, Ross Powell, who declares his love for
Laurel, and makes wicked proposals.
Repulsed with scorn, he departs, vowing vengeance on the scornful
little beauty.
Desperate with misery, Laurel seeks a beautiful young lady, the noble
daughter of a publisher, for whose magazine her father had written
until his death.
"She is a sister-woman, and will help me in my trouble," thought the
poor girl.
Between this splendid Miss Gordon and her clever maid, a plan was
formed by which the orphan girl (by sailing under false colors) became
the honored guest of wealthy people, and afterward the bride of a proud
aristocrat, who thought he had married the peerless Miss Gordon, and
had never heard of poor little Laurel Vane, who was his worshiped wife.
Upon this conspiracy hung all the plot of the play, and the leading
parts were taken, first by Clifford Standish, leading man, the part of
the hero, St. Leon Le Roy; the part of the heroine, Laurel Vane, by
Geraldine Harding; the villain, Ross Powell, by Cameron Clemens; and
Miss Gordon by Madeline Mills, the usual star of the company, although
she had yielded precedence in this case to Geraldine, who looked so
exactly the part of the _ingenue_ heroine, with her starry brown eyes
and curly golden hair.
But it is not necessary to our story to go into the details of the
play. Although it enthralled the attention of the sympathetic audience,
it held even greater interest for the party in the Stansbury box,
because they knew two of the actors so well.
How it thrilled Harry Hawthorne to see pretty Geraldine again, even
though he deprecated her stage career so bitterly.
As for Cissy, the tears sprang to her eyes when she first saw her lost
friend, looking so familiar in the same simple black serge gown she
had worn behind the counter when she was only a salesgirl at O'Neill's
great store, and which answered excellently well for the mourning gown
of the orphan heroine. Indeed, that floating mass of golden locks was
glory enough to lend beauty to the shabbiest attire.
They watched her with absorbing interest through the changes of the
play, but for a long time Geraldine did not perceive them. She was
absorbed in her work, and did not cast coquettish glances at the boxes,
like the other actresses. It was well she did not, for the sight of
them would have unnerved her cruelly.
But Clifford Standish was on the alert, and while posing as the
magnificent Le Roy, scowled secretly at the occupants of that
particular box.
When the first act was over, he intercepted Geraldine on her way to the
dressing-room, and said:
"I have something very particular to tell you.
"Yes."
"Now call your pride to your aid, dear one, for you will be shocked, I
know. But I thought it best to put you on your guard."
"Yes," she answered, paling suddenly, but with her small head proudly
erect.
"Have you noticed the first box to the right?"
"No, I have not looked at the house at all. I heard it was crowded,"
wearily.
"It is, and we have made a hit. But--that box--there's a theatre party
in it--all people that you know."
"Indeed," listlessly, pretending no interest.
"Yes, and I tell you about them now so you will not notice them when
you go on again in the second part. They are the Stansburys; the bride
and groom, Harry and Mrs. Hawthorne; the two single Odell girls, and
Cissy Carroll, with three young men--their beaus, no doubt."
She clutched his arm with a trembling hand.
"I--I--wish you had not told me," she faltered. "I--shall--be nervous
now--in my part, I fear."
"You do not mean that you can care for that fellow still--you, my
promised bride, and he the husband of Daisy Odell?" reproachfully.
"Oh, no, no; do not accuse me of such weakness," wildly. "But there
is--Cissy, you know--Cissy turned against me, and we were so fond once!"
Her voice was almost a wail.
"Do not think of her, my dearest love--she is not worthy of it, the
jealous, envious creature! Call pride to help you appear indifferent.
Do not even turn your head toward that box, and they need never know
how they have wounded your fond heart," he persisted, anxiously.
"Yes, yes; I will obey you," she answered, faintly.
"And, Geraldine, my darling--my sweet, promised bride--you know how
madly I love you, but you have denied all my prayers for an immediate
marriage! Will you not relent and make me the happiest man on earth?
Oh, let us be married to-night after the play! It can be managed easily
enough. Say yes, dearest?"
A call-boy came through the corridor, chanting:
"Only five minutes till next act--only five minutes."
She broke away from him, panting, breathlessly:
"I cannot answer you now."
She fled to her dressing-room, glad to escape his importunities, yet
feeling as if she did not do him justice by her lack of love.
"He is so patient, so tender, and so eager to spare me pain, that I
ought to love him more than I do," she told herself.
Respect and esteem she could give him, for she believed that he was
good and noble, so well had he acted the traitor's part; but love--oh,
we cannot give love at will!
"Life's perfect June, Love's red, red rose,
Have burned and bloomed for me.
Though still youth's summer sunlight glows;
Though thou art kind, dear friend, I find
I have no heart for thee."
She stole to the wings one moment, to gaze by stealth at the theatre
party, and by the merest accident Harry Hawthorne was leaning over
the bride's chair, talking to her of some trifle, but the sight made
Geraldine draw back all white and quivering, with a cruel pang at her
heart.
"I hate him!" she moaned, to herself, in a passion of jealous despair.
But when she came upon the stage she did not look again at the box, or
she would have seen that Harry Hawthorne sat apart from Daisy, by the
side of Cissy. She acted her part well, for in it there was much of the
tragic pain that suited well with her desperate mood.
At the close of the second act, Standish renewed his pleadings for
a marriage that night, and in her bitter mood, Geraldine, like many
others who exchange one pain for another in mad impatience, ceased to
struggle against his importunities and yielded a passive consent to his
ardent prayer.
CHAPTER XVII.
AT THE END OF THE PLAY.
"A love like ours was a challenge to fate;
She rang down the curtain and shifted the scene;
Yet sometimes now, when the day grows late,
I can hear you calling for Little Queen.
For a happy home and a busy life
Can never wholly crowd out our past;
In the twilight pauses that come from strife
You will think of me while life shall last."
Yes, she had promised to marry Clifford Standish as soon as the last
act of the play was over. The act would leave the heroine, Laurel,
presumably "happy ever after" but must plunge poor Geraldine into
deeper despair.
For though she admired Clifford Standish greatly, was proud of his
love, and grateful for his kindness, she did not feel as if she could
ever love him as she had loved another. Her poor heart seemed dead and
cold in its numb misery of slighted love, and the thought of marriage
was repugnant to every instinct of her nature.
But she owed Clifford Standish such a debt of gratitude that there
seemed no way of paying it save by yielding to his importunate
entreaties for an immediate marriage.
But how she shrank from the moment that would seal her fate, although
she had failed in courage to defend herself from it.
It was a bitter pride that was pushing her into this unloving marriage.
She would let Harry Hawthorne, who had flirted with her so cruelly, see
that she did not care for him at all; that she could marry a man who
was his superior in position, in riches, and in everything that made up
true and noble manhood.
Geraldine despised a male flirt. Whenever one of the creatures tried to
catch her eyes in public, she always set him down beneath contempt, and
one withering glance from her flashing eyes would make him shrink into
himself, ashamed for once before the scornful eyes of a true woman.
And the thought that Harry Hawthorne was one of those contemptible
wretches was inexpressibly bitter.
She had shed many secret tears over the dread that he had read in her
frank brown eyes the tenderness he had awakened in her heart.
She thought when she was married to the actor, and Hawthorne heard of
it, he would think she had only been flirting with him at Newburgh,
and that she had been engaged to Standish all the while. In this fancy
there was a kind of balm for her aching heart.
She could hardly keep the tears back from her eyes as she thought it
over and over, wondering if, after all, Harry Hawthorne had not cared
for her a wee bit, but had been bound to Daisy Odell beforehand.
She wondered if she should ever meet him again, after she was married,
and if it would give him pain to know if she belonged to another man.
To save her life, Geraldine could not help half-believing in the ardent
love that had looked at her out of those dark-blue eyes, and if she
would but have looked up at the box where he sat, she would have seen
that love shining on her still--a love as strong as death, although it
was so hopeless.
But Geraldine did not look that way, tutored to proud indifference by
the cunning arts of Standish. She seemed cold as ice, but her heart was
burning with restless longings for her lost love-dream.
"Perhaps he may repent and love me some day when it is too late--too
late!" she sighed, bitterly, thinking of the sweet
SONG OF MARGARET.
"Ay, I saw her; we have met;
Married eyes, how sweet they be!
Are you happier, Margaret,
Than you might have been with me?
Silence! make no more ado!
Did she think I should forget?
Matters nothing, though I knew,
Margaret, Margaret!
"Once those eyes, full sweet, full shy,
Told a certain thing to mine;
What they told me I put by,
Oh, so careless of the sign.
Such an easy thing to take,
And I did not want it then;
Fool! I wish my heart would break;
Scorn is hard on hearts of men!
"Scorn of self is bitter work;
Each of us has felt it now;
Bluest skies she counted mirk,
Self-betrayed of eyes and brow.
As for me, I went my way.
And a better man drew nigh,
Fain to earn, with long essay,
What the winner's hand threw by.
"Matters not in deserts old
What was born, and waxed, and yearned,
Year to year its meaning told,
I am come--its deeps are learned.
Come! but there is naught to say;
Married eyes with mine have met.
Silence! Oh, I had my day,
Margaret! Margaret!"
Poor Geraldine wished that the hands of time could turn back and delay
the moment of her marriage, now so speedily approaching.
But the second act was over, the third and last began.
She was so nervous, it was the greatest wonder in the world that she
did not forget her lines, and call down the ridicule of the audience.
But she threw herself with abandon into the part. It was so tragic she
could feel every word of it.
And so the end came.
It was the moment before the curtain fell, when the whole company
were grouped upon the stage in the final tableau, that--a startling
interruption occurred.
A deputy sheriff, with his aids, strode upon the stage, and clapped his
hand on the shoulder of Clifford Standish.
"You are my prisoner!" he said, sternly; and added: "I have a warrant
for your arrest for deserting your wife."
It was like a thunder-clap, so sudden and so startling.
The actor, at that moment, was holding Geraldine's hand in a fervent
clasp, and he felt it turn cold as ice as she drew it from him in
trembling horror.
He grew lividly pale beneath his stage make-up, but he tried to brazen
it out by saying:
"Officer, you have made a mistake. I am not the man."
"Oh, yes, you are, Clifford Standish, and you must come with me to the
Tombs at once," returned the deputy sheriff, with a satirical smile.
"I tell you it is a mistake; I have no wife, and this is a base attempt
to injure an innocent man. I will prove it in court to-morrow,"
exclaimed the actor, putting on an air of injured innocence.
The audience was in an uproar, cries of sympathy and jeers of
execration blending together. The accusation of the deputy sheriff had
been heard by all. Mrs. Stansbury's box party looked and listened with
breathless interest, and Cissy whispered to Hawthorne.
"Oh, the grand villain! trying to brazen it out! but I am sure that he
is guilty. And poor Geraldine, how white and stricken she looks. I'm
going down to her to persuade her to come home with me to-night."
"You must come with me," repeated the deputy sheriff, sternly, to
Standish, and he answered, sullenly:
"Very well; but first let me speak to Miss Harding."
And while they guarded him closely, he whispered to the dazed and
shrinking girl:
"For God's sake, do not believe the falsehood that has been trumped up
against me by some enemy just to injure me in your regards. It is not
true, and if you will only believe in me till to-morrow, I will prove
it."
"I--I--will try to trust in you," she faltered, gently, but in
her heart she knew that she was glad of this interruption to her
wedding--knew that she hoped the charge was true.
If he had a wife already, he would be proved a villain, and
she--Geraldine--would be free of the promise so rashly made.
"One more promise, my angel! Do not have anything to say to--to--my
enemies in the box. They will try to turn your heart against me," he
pleaded, feverishly.
"Come, come! I cannot wait any longer," the deputy sheriff said,
roughly, and pulled him away before she could reply.
And the next moment Cissy's soft hand clasped hers, and her gentle
voice said:
"Let us be friends again, dear Geraldine."
"Oh, Cissy, darling," and the pretty actress, whom all had been
praising for her genius, fell into the other's arms, sobbing like a
weary child.
"You poor, dear child!" cooed Cissy, patting the golden head.
Then--"You'll come home with me for to-night, dear, won't you? I have a
cab waiting."
Geraldine was only too glad to go. She hurried her friend to the
dressing-room to wait while she got ready.
Cissy chatted incessantly:
"You didn't see us all, so grand in that box to-night, did you? I
tried to catch your eye, but you never looked once! And poor Harry
Hawthorne, how disappointed he was at your indifference!"
"Cissy!" and the pretty actress stamped her tiny foot angrily.
"Good gracious! What is the matter, my dear?"
"Never mention that man to me again! I hate him!"
"Who--Clifford Standish? I don't blame you! I've hated him ever since
he first became known to me."
"No, no; I mean Harry Hawthorne!"
"Why, what has he done to you, Geraldine?"
"Has--hasn't he--gone and married Daisy Odell?" with a stifled sob.
CHAPTER XVIII.
REUNION.
"Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
Tie up the broken threads of that old dream;
And go on happy as before; and seem
Lovers again, though all the world may scoff.
"Let us forget the cold, malicious fate
Who made our loving hearts her idle toys,
And once more revel in the old sweet joys
Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late."
Cissy Carroll made big eyes of surprise at Geraldine's charge.
"Married Daisy Odell? Harry Hawthorne? Why, certainly not! Whatever put
such an idea into your dear little noddle?" she demanded, in wonder.
"Mr. Standish told me so before we came back to New York. He said he
had an invitation to the wedding. And isn't Daisy married to him, after
all? Oh, Cissy, don't try to deceive me, for I saw her--saw her in the
box all in white--so bride-like--and Harry Hawthorne leaning over her
chair," exclaimed Geraldine, clutching the other's arm with unconscious
violence, her beautiful eyes dilated with doubt and entreaty.
"My darling Gerry, don't pinch me black and blue, please, and don't get
so excited. Yes, Daisy Odell is certainly married."
"Oh-h-h!" groaned Geraldine, in anguish.
"She is married," pursued Cissy, "and married to one of the dearest
fellows in the world, she says--Charlie Butler--but not to Harry
Hawthorne. Why, I don't believe he wants to marry any one in the world
but you!"
"Me--Cissy!" and Geraldine's face, so lugubrious a moment before, grew
radiant with joy, while the girl continued:
"That wretch, Clifford Standish, has told you falsehoods about Mr.
Hawthorne, dear, for he never thought of loving any one but you. Didn't
you see him with me in the box to-night? I am the only girl he ever
goes with, and that is just for your sake, dear, because I was your
friend."
"Oh, Cissy!"
Such joy as there was in those two words, for new life came to
Geraldine in the assurance that Hawthorne was free, and loved her still.
She put on her dress with trembling fingers, crying:
"Oh, help me, Cissy, I'm so nervous--and--and tired, you know."
"Poor child! no wonder. And troubled, too, perhaps, for maybe
you--loved that Standish!"
"Oh, no, no--never, Cissy!"
"Oh, I'm so glad, for that would have broken poor Hawthorne's tender
heart, he loves you so much. And you, dear--didn't you care for him a
little, too?"
Geraldine was all blushing, blissful confusion.
"I--I--you know how that was, Cissy. I liked him--just a little--at
first, but when he did not come that night, or after"--she broke down,
sobbing under her breath.
"Oh, Geraldine, he could not--he was hurt you know--and Standish
intercepted his letter of explanation. But I mustn't rattle on like
this, or I'll leave nothing for Hawthorne to tell you himself."
Geraldine looked at her with a glorified face.
"Oh, Cissy! Shall I see him soon?"
"He's waiting at the cab, dear, so let us hurry."
She fastened the ribbons of Geraldine's cape, and, taking her hand,
hurried her through the corridor to the stage door.
And there--oh, joy of joys! stood Harry Hawthorne, waiting, with an
eager, expectant look.
How Geraldine's heart bounded at the sight of that handsome face!
She could scarcely restrain herself from springing into his arms.
But, instead, she demurely held out her little hand, and he clasped it
closely, saying as he led her to the cab:
"I am so glad to find you again, and we must have a long talk to-night."
CHAPTER XIX.
MUTUAL LOVE.
"Oh, happy love! where love like this is found!
Oh, heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare:
If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving modest pair
In other's arms breathe out love's tender tale
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale."
It was a long distance from the theatre to Cissy's home, but the
distance was short to Geraldine and her lover, as they sat side by side
in the cab, almost wishing that the ride would never come to an end, it
was so heavenly sweet to be together again.
Both of them were in secret ecstasies at the catastrophe to Clifford
Standish that had seemed to remove him from their path forever.
The future seemed to stretch before them roseate, shining,
love-crowned, blissful.
Cissy did her best to explain away all the shadows that had come
between them all.
"Geraldine, I wrote you five letters. Why didn't you answer them, you
cruel girl?"
"Five letters? Oh, Cissy, I never received one of them; and it almost
broke my heart that you would not answer all the long ones I wrote to
you."
"You wrote to me? How strange that I did not get a line from you, dear.
And I was so grieved, so uneasy over you. I thought you were proud and
stubborn. But, tell me--did you post them yourself?"
"No; I always gave them to Mr. Standish to send out with the company's
mail."
"Ah! that accounts for all. The wretch intercepted our letters to each
other, just as he did Mr. Hawthorne's letters to you."
"I do not understand," said Geraldine; so they told her the story of
the actor's treachery.
Everything lay bare before her now, and she comprehended that all she
had suffered since her parting with Harry Hawthorne had been brought
about by a deep-laid plot, involving both her happiness and honor; for
what if she had married Standish to-night--he, who already had a wife,
whom he had deserted!
Her honor would have been trampled in the dust; her life wrecked, to
gratify the base passion of this monster, whom she had mistakenly
believed the embodiment of truth and goodness.
Trembling with horror at all that she had so narrowly escaped,
Geraldine bowed her head in her hands and sobbed aloud.
And Harry Hawthorne longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, but
he did not have the right yet, for only words of friendship had been
spoken between them, and he feared and dreaded that she had given her
young heart to the wretch who had succeeded so well in his vile plans
for parting them in the first flush of their sweet love-dream.
But now they were at home, and, bidding the cabman wait, he went in
with the girls, saying:
"I know it is rather late to make a call, but something impels me to
have a talk with Miss Harding to-night, if she will permit me."
She gave a glad assent, seconded by Cissy, who said, cordially:
"Yes, indeed, come in and talk to Geraldine. You are very excusable
under the circumstances."
And, lighting up the poor, but neat, little room, she left them and
retired to the adjoining one, where she busied herself with little
preparations for the morrow, so as not to embarrass the lovers by her
presence.
As for them, when they were left alone, Hawthorne, still standing, took
Geraldine's hand and drew her to him, gazing into her face with tender,
questioning blue eyes.
The answering look in her sweet tearful eyes was so satisfactory that
he said:
"I think everything is explained between us now, is it not, Geraldine?
You must have known before we parted that fatal day that I loved you!"
She could not speak because of the happy sob in her throat, but her
burning blushes seemed to answer yes, and he pressed her little hand
tighter as he continued:
"Yes, even in the brief time I knew you, dearest, you had become the
one love of my life, treasured in my heart as the most rare and
radiant thing under heaven. And I--I--fancied I read in your sweet
smiles that my love would not be given in vain--that I should win you
for my own!"
It was like the sweetest music in her ears to hear him telling his
love so ardently, with that eager look in his eyes, and such a quiver
of hope and fear in his musical voice. It was so dear, so sweet, so
thrilling, Geraldine could have listened unweariedly forever.
Oh, first love! what a glimpse through the open gates of heaven it is
to the youthful heart! Nothing that comes after, even in the longest
life, can compare with it in bliss.
It clothes the world in new beauty, makes the sky more blue, the
flowers more fair, the sunlight more golden.
And, thank Heaven, it can gladden the hearts of the poor and humble
as well as the rich and great. None are so poor that beautiful Love
refuses to visit them, or abide in their hearts.
So to this pair of lovers, though their lot in life was but lowly,
and the roof that sheltered them humble, came as pure and rich a joy
as if they had dwelt in palace halls. Is it not a glorious provision
of Providence that love is free for all? Not bought like diamonds,
although it shines brighter; not purchased like luxuries, although it
is sweeter, but free as the pure air of heaven, although the greatest
luxury, so that if it had to be bought it would bring the greatest
price of all.
"Oh, Geraldine," cried her lover, "I love you still, I shall love you
always, even if my love prove hopeless, and changes from bliss to
endless pain! But give me some little hope to feed on, dearest one.
Tell me that that base wretch Standish did not win you with his wicked
arts, did not turn your heart against me!"
"Oh, no, no, no!" she murmured, faintly, then paused, abashed,
remembering how she had listened to and believed all the cruel
falsehoods against her true lover.
"You believed in me, in spite of all! Oh, how can I thank you----" he
began, but she interrupted.
"Oh, no, I was not so noble as you believe, for I thought he told the
truth. But--but--it made me wretched, thinking you were what he said,
for--I could not love him, though he begged me. I--I--loved you, in
spite of all!"
"Geraldine--my own!" and he caught her to his breast, their lips
meeting in Love's first kiss.
Oh, the happiness of that moment; its never-to-be-forgotten bliss! It
paid for all they had suffered in the months that they had been so
cruelly parted by the machinations of a villain.
At last they thought of sitting down, although Hawthorne said, happily:
"But it must be for only a moment; then I must tear myself away, and
not keep you from your needful rest, my beloved one. To-morrow I will
come again, and feast my eyes on the sight of you."
"Oh, it is not so late, and--I am not sleepy," she faltered.
"Darling!" and he kissed the sweet lips fondly again; then, holding her
hand, and looking deep in her tender eyes, he continued: "I am going to
ask you for one pledge of the love you have so sweetly confessed for
me, Geraldine. Promise me that you will never go on the stage again."
"Oh, never, never! I hate it now, and I will never tread the boards
again!" vowed Geraldine, in eager earnest, shuddering at thought of the
pitfalls Clifford Standish had spread for her unwary feet, and thanking
Heaven in her secret heart that she had escaped them.
She could not bring herself to confess to her lover that she had
actually promised to marry Standish that night, and that only a
fortunate accident had prevented the consummation of the horror. Why,
even now, instead of this dear hand-clasp, instead of these dear
kisses, she might have been trembling in silent disgust at the caresses
of a man she could never love! Oh, how good Heaven had been to save her
from the consequences of her own folly, and restore her to her love
again!
She resolved never to tell Hawthorne of that broken engagement. She
felt that she could almost die of shame to have him find it out.
"I must keep that secret from him, and I must never tell him, either,
that I tried to throw away my life when I thought him married to
another. I should not like him to know quite how fondly I love him!"
she thought, with sensitive maiden pride.
Then Hawthorne had to tear himself away.
"To-morrow is Christmas, and I shall try to spend it with you," he
said, fondly. "But I may be kept from your side by a fire, for there
are always so many on Christmas Day. So, if I fail to come, don't let
Standish create any misunderstandings between us again," he laughed,
secure in the thought that his enemy was safe in prison.
Geraldine promised very sincerely to trust her love, in spite of a
hundred plots against him, and then they called Cissy in, and told her
happily of their betrothal.
"I am the happiest man in New York to-night," he said, as he bade them
good-night, leaving them to their sweet, girlish confidences.
CHAPTER XX.
"LOVE IS THE BEST OF ALL."
This golden ring, love, take,
And wear it for my sake
When I am far away;
And nightly we will pray
The dear God's pity on our pain,
That we may meet again,
Our partings o'er, our sorrows past,
You mine, I yours, at last!
MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER.
How much the two happy girls had to say to each other, when Hawthorne
was gone!
It was long past midnight when they retired, and the joyous Christmas
sounds were already filling the air. Even then they could not sleep,
they had so many things to tell of all that had happened since they
were parted from each other.
"I am quite cured of my passion for the stage. It seems to me that all
actors must be deceitful villains!" cried Geraldine, and Cissy agreed
with her, glad of her disillusionment.
"Do you think, Cissy," pursued Geraldine, "that I could get back my
place at O'Neill's with you? Oh, I would be so glad to get back again!"
"We will try to manage it," replied Cissy. "One of the girls is to be
married soon after New Year's, and perhaps you can have her place. I'll
see about it as soon as I go back to the store; but we have Christmas
holiday to-morrow."
"Yes; what a happy Christmas it will be for me!" cried Geraldine,
thinking of what might have been, with a shudder. She laughed, to choke
back a sob, and continued: "Let's hang up our stockings to-morrow
night, as it's too late now, and fill them for each other as we did
last Christmas."
"Agreed, my dear; it will be great fun," laughed Cissy, and added:
"I suppose your Christmas gift from Mr. Hawthorne will be--an
engagement-ring."
"Oh, Cissy, how nice that would be! Do you think he can afford it?
Firemen aren't very rich, are they?" naively.
"I guess not; but of course he will give you a ring, even if it's a
plain gold band, that will do also for a marriage-ring when the wedding
comes off."
"No matter how simple a ring he gives me, I shall love it, and be proud
of it, for his sake--just as proud of it as if it were a splendid
diamond!" cried pretty Geraldine, tenderly, and then she laughed and
said, further: "I used to be such a silly little goose, thinking I
would never love and marry any man who could not give me silks and
diamonds; but love has changed my nature, and I prize Harry's love more
than anything on earth. Of course, I still admire beautiful, costly
things, but I would not give him in exchange for a millionaire."
"You are right, dear. Although it is well to have love and wealth, too,
yet love is the best of all, and I would not barter it for anything on
earth," answered Cissy, so earnestly that Geraldine put her arm around
her neck and whispered, coaxingly:
"Dear, you have always spoken so sweetly of love--and yet you do not
seem to care for lovers yourself. Why is it? Have you never loved any
one?"
Geraldine felt her companion tremble a little, then she replied,
lightly:
"That is a leading question--as the lawyers say--and I don't believe I
will answer it just yet. Wait--I will tell you another time."
And her answer only confirmed Geraldine in the belief she had cherished
for a long time that there was a romance in Cissy's past--some
love-story that had somewhat saddened her life and made her lips and
eyes so sweetly pensive. From her own happy heart swelled up a silent
prayer that love and joy might come soon to Cissy's life, with the same
rich blessings it brought to her own.
"Now cuddle your head on your pillow, dear, and go off to the land
of Nod, or you will not look pretty for your sweetheart to-morrow,"
commanded Cissy; and soon they were both fast asleep and wandering in
the land of dreams, from which they did not return until the light of
day peeped in at the windows.
"Good gracious! it must be eight o'clock! I've overslept myself this
blessed Christmas morning. A good thing I don't have to go to the
store to-day!" Cissy cried, springing out of bed and running to the
window, where she thrust aside the curtain and peered out into the
street.
A beautiful sight presented itself--a great city clothed in a
resplendent mantle of deep snow, that had come between the dark and the
dawn, and overhead a clear, blue sky and brilliant sunshine.
"Oh, how grand! how beautiful! and what glorious sleighing there will
be to-day! Wake up, Geraldine, and see the beautiful Christmas morn!"
cried the young girl, who, although she had so little of this world's
goods, and did not expect a single Christmas gift, was unselfishly
happy in the prospect of pleasure for others.
But they had scarcely finished their simple breakfast, gayly prepared
by both their hands, when there was a knock at the door, and several
packages were handed in for both of them--a little feast of fruit and
confectioneries, jewel-box, with a dainty pin for Cissy, and another
for Geraldine, with a ring. The gifts bore the card of Harry Hawthorne.
"Oh, how lovely in him to remember me like this! I shall fall in
love with him myself! This dear brooch! How I adore it! See the dear
little enameled violets, with dewy centers like real diamonds! Oh, how
generous he is!" Cissy cried, rapturously, while Geraldine paled with
emotion as she slipped over her finger a beautiful ring, and held it up
for inspection.
Cissy went almost dumb at the sight, for the stone was a pure diamond
of good size, and worth more than either girl had any idea of in their
ignorance of the value of gems.
"Oh, Cissy, it is a real diamond, is it not? See how it glitters!"
cried Geraldine, tremulously, as she turned her hand about, admiring
the sparkling rays of light.
She was fairly overwhelmed with joy at this beautiful gift from her
lover, and continued, breathlessly:
"Oh, it is so beautiful! I am so proud to have it! But--but--wasn't he
rather--extravagant, Cissy? I should not have thought he could afford
it, for surely it must have cost a hundred dollars at least--don't you
think so?"
"More than that, in my judgment," cried Cissy, finding breath after
her rapturous amazement, and continuing: "But it is none too pretty
or costly for you, my beautiful darling, if he can afford it; and of
course he can, or he would not have sent it. Perhaps he is not as poor
as we thought. He looks like a prince in disguise, anyway, he's so
stately and handsome!"
She paused, for Geraldine had found a note in the box, and was reading
it.
"MY OWN DARLING:--I am disconsolate this morning because I could not
get leave of absence to come to you," wrote Hawthorne, fondly, "but I
couldn't get a man to take my place at the engine-house to-day, and
I daren't desert my post, for there have been two fires already this
morning, and I was out with my engine in the driving snow of dawn,
while you, I hope, were wrapped in slumber and sweet dreams of your
adoring sweetheart!
"Isn't the snow fine? I shall try my hardest to get off in time to
take you and Cissy for a grand sleigh-ride before the day is ended.
"I send you both some bon-bons and fruits, with a brooch for Cissy,
and a ring for you. You will be asking yourself how can a poor
fireman afford to give diamonds to his betrothed and her dear friend!
Well, darling, both trinkets were heir-looms from my dead mother, who
was richer in worldly goods than her son. So the little mystery is
explained.
"God bless you and keep you, my beloved, until we meet again, which I
trust and hope may be this afternoon.
"Devotedly, HARRY."
Geraldine gave her friend the note to read, then they discussed some of
the dainties, while Cissy said, regretfully:
"If I had only known yesterday that I should have you with me to-day,
I should have prepared a real little feast for our dinner, but I felt
so lonely and sad I prepared nothing extra, and now I really must slip
out and buy something good. What would you like, dear--a dear little
chicken and some oysters? For a turkey would be too big for us two!"
"Oh, some oysters, please; I am so fond of them, and they are not so
good out West, where I traveled so long," cried Geraldine, with real
girlish delight, it seemed so jolly to be back with Cissy, playing at
housekeeping again.
"I'll never leave my darling again until--I marry!" she thought, with
kindling blushes, and while Cissy was gone she employed her time
writing a very polite note to Mr. Cameron Clemens, the manager of the
Clemens Company, resigning her situation, to take effect at once.
When she remembered Mr. Clemens, she felt a little remorseful over her
denunciation of all actors last night, for she had found this one very
kind and clever during her engagement with the company.
She went down stairs and engaged the landlady's son to take her note
at once to the hotel where the manager was staying, and then tried to
dismiss the matter from her mind, but she felt a little remorseful, for
Laurel Vane was billed to appear again to-night, and she knew it could
not go on, now that she and Standish had both withdrawn--that was, of
course, unless the latter could get free from prison, which did not
seem likely, considering the nature of the charge against him.
When Cissy came in, Geraldine said, happily:
"I feel as free as a bird, for I have sent in my resignation in the
Clemens Company, and now I shall not have to leave you any more."
"Until Mr. Hawthorne steals you away from me," amended Cissy, kissing
her rosy cheek before she hurried into the adjoining room to prepare
her little Christmas dinner.
"Let me help you!" pleaded Geraldine.
"Oh, no, you shall be company come to dine to-day. And, besides, you
must stay dressed up, to receive callers."
"But there's no one to call."
"Oh, yes, there is," and her words proved true, for before the day
ended there came Mrs. Stansbury, with her three sisters, Carrie,
Consuelo, and Mrs. Charles Butler, the lovely bride of whom Geraldine
had been so horribly jealous.
How glad they all were to see her again; how they petted and made much
of her, denouncing Clifford Standish for a real villain.
"And you're engaged to that splendid Hawthorne--how charming! Oh, you
needn't blush! He told my husband this morning, and we all hurried off
to wish you joy," cried volatile Mrs. Stansbury.
CHAPTER XXI.
"OH, GERALDINE, I'LL HAVE TO TELL YOU MY GUARDED SECRET!"
"I have a secret sorrow here--
A grief I'll ne'er impart;
It heaves no sigh, it sheds no tear,
But it consumes my heart."
At last the Stansburys were gone, but then some of the girls from
O'Neill's dropped in. It was a merry, happy day to Geraldine, with but
one shadow on its brightness--the absence of Hawthorne.
At every knock she started up, all blissful, blushing confusion,
thinking that surely this time it was he, but each time she was doomed
to a sad disappointment.
But from the constant ringing of fire alarms through the day she easily
guessed what kept him from her side.
But when the afternoon was far spent, and the sunlight grew pale and
cold, there was a masculine step at the door that made her heart throb
quickly again with eager hope as she sprang to open it, thinking:
"I cannot be mistaken. He is come at last!"
But the next moment she stood face to face with the handsome manager,
Cameron Clemens.
And as he entered there was a soft little swish of skirts as Cissy fled
to the next room.
"How she hates anybody connected with the stage!" thought Geraldine,
amusedly.
The manager had come to entreat her to reconsider her resignation.
He could get some one else to take the place of Standish in the play,
if she would only go on, he said.
But Geraldine was obdurate. She told the manager frankly that she was
engaged, and her betrothed objected to her return to the stage.
"I am very sorry for your disappointment," she said; "I like you, and
you have been very kind to me, but my betrothed objects, you see, and
that settles the case with me."
Mr. Clemens did not fly into a rage, as many another would have done in
his place. He wished Geraldine joy, told her that the stage had lost an
ornament in her withdrawal from it, presented her with the amount of
salary still due her, and took a courteous leave.
He knew that he could put on another play, in which the remainder of
the company could do very well that night, but he sorely regretted the
loss of Geraldine, who had certainly proved a drawing card.
But he could not help the turn of events, so he went his way, bitterly
disappointed, while Geraldine called into the other room:
"You can come back now, Cissy, for Mr. Clemens is gone. But, you silly
girl, why did you run away? I wished you to know him, he is so nice and
handsome!"
There was no answer from her friend, and she went back into the room.
There was Cissy, on a low seat in the darkest corner, and presently
there came a low, stifled sob.
Geraldine flung herself on her knees by her friend, in great surprise
and alarm.
"Oh, my darling girl! what ails you? Are you sick? Did the bonbons
disagree with you?"
"No-o-o!" sighed Cissy.
"Then what is it, dear? Are you in trouble? Or were you angry
because the manager came here? But this shall be the last of any
stage visitors, I assure you! Or do you want me to go away, Cissy?"
plaintively.
"Oh, Gerry, you will drive me mad with your questions! I'll have to
tell you my guarded secret!"
CHAPTER XXII.
"THAT WOMAN SHALL PAY DEARLY FOR THIS!"
From my hand I tore in anger
That dear pledge, the wedding ring--
Swore that I would learn to hate him,
But it is so weak a thing,
This poor woman's heart, that, beating
Heavily within my breast,
Aches with jealous grief and anger,
Tortured with a fierce unrest.
MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER.
Most bitter were the reflections of the elegant villain, Clifford
Standish, during the long night in his prison-cell.
He knew too well that the charge against him was perfectly true, and
that his boast to Geraldine that he would clear himself at court was
absolutely false.
Two years before, he had secretly married a piquant variety actress, of
whom he had soon wearied, but from whose fetters he could not get free.
Her life was absolutely irreproachable, and he could find no flaw in it
on which to base an application for divorce.
And all of his flagrant violations of faith, although known too well to
his wife, did not goad her to seek release from him.
She loved him, poor creature, with that dog-like devotion seen in some
women of average intellect, who love the hand that smites them. She was
romantic, and called it constancy; other women called it lack of spirit.
She could not and did not comprehend the baseness of the man she loved.
The end and aim of her poor, wrecked life was to win him back to the
allegiance of which he had wearied so soon.
Although she dared not disregard his injunction not to reveal their
marriage, she followed him about as often as her engagements would
permit, trying to keep track of his movements.
When he was away from the city, she wrote him long love-letters, over
which he laughed in heartless amusement.
It was one of these letters that he had pretended to read to Geraldine
on the bridge at Alderson, claiming that it contained news of
Hawthorne's marriage.
It was this woman who had prevented him from accompanying Geraldine to
Newburgh, by threatening to reveal his fatal secret.
At length, driven almost mad by his fiendish conduct, she had thrown
caution to the winds, and caused his arrest on the stage that night for
desertion.
But she would have trembled with fear could she have heard his threats
against her that night as he raged up and down his prison-cell,
execrating her as the cause of his losing pretty Geraldine forever.
"A few more hours and my peerless girl would have been mine, all mine!
Oh, to miss happiness by so slight a chance, it is horrible, and dearly
shall that woman pay for this!" he swore.
But he knew that his wrath was futile, for she would have all the
proofs of his conduct ready to cover him with shame in the morning.
The morning found him sullen, bitter, desperate. The policemen said
afterward that his eyes looked actually fiendish when he was placed in
the Black Maria to be conveyed to the court-house in Chambers street.
That fiendish look was still in his eyes when they started to transfer
him from the vehicle to the court-house, and--how it exactly happened
they never could tell--but the seemingly quiet prisoner whom they had
not thought it necessary to handcuff, suddenly struck out with two
athletic fists, landing one startled policeman on the snowy pavement,
and the other one flat in the gutter. Then he fled like a professional
sprinter, and nobody tried to stop him, perhaps because they pitied the
poor devil, and wished him his liberty this glorious Christmas morning.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CISSY'S SECRET.
Ay, but, darling, speak his name;
Give to sorrow words and tears;
This strange silence, proud and cold,
Fills my heart with anxious fears.
Curse him, bairnie, or forgive him,
For I know Love's subtle art;
The grief that's never spoken
May sometimes break the heart.
MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER.
"I must tell you my guarded secret," sobbed Cissy, to Geraldine, and
the latter put a loving arm around her, whispering, tenderly:
"Yes, tell me all, dear; for maybe it will ease your sore heart. You
know the poet says:
"'Give sorrow words--the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break.'"
The last rays of the setting sun stole in and rested like a blessing on
the dark and golden heads close together, then faded out, and left the
little room in gloom as Cissy sighed:
"Oh, I thought I was getting over it; I thought I was contented again
until his voice and face brought back the cruel past!"
"Whose voice and face, dear Cissy? Oh, do you mean Mr. Clemens? Did he
have anything to do with your secret sorrow?"
"Everything!"
"Oh, dear, and was that why you rushed away when he entered the room?"
"Ye-es," sobbed Cissy.
"Why, this grows very interesting," exclaimed Geraldine, who dearly
loved a romance. "Why, I never even dreamed of your knowing Cameron
Clemens! Why didn't you tell me?"
"Oh, I did not wish to do so. I did not mean to resurrect my sorrow
from the grave where it has rested for years. Oh, why have I promised
to tell it now?" began Cissy, suddenly repenting her weakness.
"Oh, darling, I'll never, never breathe it to a living soul, poor dear.
Now go on, that's a sweet girl! Was Mr. Clemens your lover?"
But as the last word left her lips there came a loud, impatient double
knock upon the door, making both spring up in surprise and alarm.
"Oh-h!" cried Geraldine.
"Oh-h!" echoed Cissy.
Then they smiled at each other in the deepening gloom, and Geraldine
exclaimed:
"How that knock startled me! But, of course, it's Harry at last."
He was Harry to her now, her darling, and how sweet the name sounded
from her rosy lips.
"Of course it is Harry. Run to the door, dear," returned Cissy,
secretly glad of an interruption to the story she had promised to
relate to her friend.
All in a moment she had repented it, and wished to keep the secret
still.
So she was glad of the opportune interruption.
"Run to the door, dear. Do not keep him waiting," she urged, and
Geraldine flew blithely to open the door for her lover, as she had done
a dozen times before that day, meeting each time, as she did now--blank
disappointment.
A man stood before her, to be sure, but he was an utter
stranger--good-looking and well-dressed, with a bearded face and a hat
pulled low over his eyebrows.
"Are you Miss Harding?" he asked, in a low, muffled voice.
"Yes."
He handed a note to her; and forgetting, in her wonder, to ask him in,
she took it, and leaving him at the open door, crossed over to the
window to read it by the dim and failing light of the waning day.
It ran simply:
"My darling, there have been so many fires to-day I've been on a dead
run, and am almost tired out; but I didn't forget my promise to take
you for a sleigh-ride, and the thought of you has been singing in my
fond heart all day. It's late, I know--past five now, and I can't get
off duty at the engine-house until six o'clock; but I thought I would
take time by the forelock and be ready to take you for a little spin,
if you don't mind the hour. So my friend, Jem Rhodes volunteered to
go to the livery stable and get a sleigh for me, and bring you down
to the engine-house by six o'clock, so I could take the reins the
minute I'm free.
"Will you come with my good friend, Rhodes, dear? A clever fellow to
do us this good turn, is he not?
"Hastily and fondly, H. H."
In the dim light the writing looked the same as that she had received
that morning from her lover. Not a doubt crossed her mind.
She hastily explained the case to her friend.
Cissy could see no objection to the plan, and she was rather relieved
that Geraldine was going, so that she could not tease her for the
love-story she was now reluctant to tell.
"It seems all right," she said, encouragingly.
Geraldine flew to get on her warmest wraps, and Cissy invited Mr.
Rhodes to come in to the fire.
"I will light the gas," she said, hospitably, but he shrank back into
the shadowy hall.
"No, thank you, I must go down and look after the horses. Please tell
the young lady to hurry," he said, in that strange, muffled voice,
retreating down the stair-way as he spoke.
Geraldine was ready in a minute, and Cissy went down with her to the
sleigh, an elegant turn-out, with two horses.
"Don't stay too late, dear, or you may take cold," cautioned Cissy,
tenderly; and then they kissed each other good-by, little dreaming how
long it would be, poor dears, before they met and kissed again.
CHAPTER XXIV.
IN THE POWER OF A FIEND.
"The bard has sung: God never formed a soul
Without its own peculiar mate, to meet
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete.
"But thousand evil things there are that hate
To look on happiness. These hurt, impede,
And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate,
Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and bleed."
Cissy went back to her lonely rooms, stirred up the fire to a brighter
blaze in the tiny stove, then sat down to a dreary retrospection of
past days, her small hands folded idly in her lap, her dark head bowed
in sadness.
The sight of the handsome actor-manager, Cameron Clemens, had brought
her memories from the past sweet and bitter in a breath, kindling old
love and renewing old pain.
"How dared he come? He must have known that Geraldine was with me!
Did he think I would ever willingly meet him again?" she murmured,
bitterly; then started to her feet, for there was another masculine rap
upon the door.
"Who is it this time?" she wondered, as she opened the door.
A cry of surprise came from her lips for there stood Harry Hawthorne,
handsome as a picture, in citizen's dress, his fireman's uniform laid
aside, his stately figure looking its best in a long fur-lined overcoat.
"Good-evening, Miss Carroll. May I come in?" he asked, gayly, with
that ring of happiness in his musical voice one hears from a recently
accepted lover.
"Come in," Cissy answered, mechanically, in her amazement, letting him
enter and close the door ere she asked, uneasily:
"Where's Geraldine? Didn't she come back with you?"
"With me? I don't understand you. I've just got away from my duties
at the engine-house, and I thought if you and Geraldine didn't mind
going out at night, we could have our sleigh-ride yet. There will be
moonlight after a while."
Cissy grasped the back of a chair to steady herself. Her face was pale,
her dove-eyes dilated.
"But--didn't you send a sleigh here just now for Geraldine?" she gasped.
It was his turn now to look startled, and his eyes went from her face
to the next room as he exclaimed:
"Isn't Geraldine here now?"
"No, no--of course not. Didn't I just tell you that she went away
just now in a sleigh that you sent to bring her to the engine-house?"
answered Cissy, turning up the light in a mechanical way, as women will
attend to trifles even in trouble.
She saw that he was deadly pale and excited, and he said, in a strained
voice:
"But I did not send any sleigh. There must be some mistake."
"There is treachery somewhere. Oh, why did I let her go, poor child?"
cried Cissy, with a sudden awful presentiment of evil.
He sank into a chair, trembling with dread.
"Tell me quickly what you mean--give me every clew you can--for I must
go in search of her," he exclaimed, anxiously.
And Cissy told him about the man, Jem Rhodes, and the note, and the
elegant sleigh in which Geraldine had gone away so blithely, her rosy
face radiant with joy, thinking to meet her lover.
"Why, there is the note now," she said, taking it up from the table
where Geraldine had left it, and handing it to Hawthorne.
He ran over it hastily, his blue eyes flashing with anger and
apprehension.
"I never wrote this note--it is not in my writing! How did Geraldine
ever make such a mistake?" he cried, hoarsely.
"She read it hastily by a dim light," said Cissy.
"And there is just enough likeness to my hand to have deceived her that
way," he cried, in anguish, for the conviction of something dreadful
had come to him. "Oh, my darling, you are the victim of some cruel
plot," he groaned, his handsome face blanching to a deathly hue.
Poor Cissy breathed, faintly:
"Oh, who could have planned this outrage? Clifford Standish is the only
man I know likely to be guilty of it. But he is in prison."
"Have you not heard? The villain escaped from the officers at the door
of the Chambers street court-house this morning, and is still at large.
No doubt he wrote this fraudulent note; no doubt it was he who carried
Geraldine off. Tell me what the wretch looked like."
Then Cissy remembered that the man Rhodes had refused to enter the
lighted room, and had been strangely taciturn, speaking only when
necessity required, and then in a low, muffled voice.
"Oh, I ought to have suspected him then. I was culpably careless and
thoughtless, letting that poor child go with him," she thought, in an
agony of distress.
When she had described the man to Hawthorne, he declared his belief
that Standish himself, with but slight disguise, had personated the
mythical Jem Rhodes.
"She is in the power of that fiend at this moment!" he exclaimed,
starting up in a passion of grief and anguish that made poor Cissy
burst out into hysterical weeping.
He was rushing to the door, and he looked back at the sound of her
sobs, and said, gently:
"Don't take it so hard, Miss Carroll, for Heaven's sake. You are not to
blame, neither was she, for that note was plausible enough to deceive
any one. But I'll find her and bring her back to you, or I'll have that
villain's cursed life!"
CHAPTER XXV.
UNDER SUSPICION.
"Through the blue and frosty heavens
Christmas stars were shining bright;
Glistening lamps throughout the city
Almost matched their gleaming light;
While the winter snow was lying,
And the winter winds were sighing,
Long ago one Christmas night."
We must follow Clifford Standish on his successful flight from justice
that Christmas morning, when the spirit of the day was so much in every
heart that no one who witnessed his escape cared to give chase to the
fugitive. Perhaps, indeed, they thought that one who could outwit two
stalwart policemen deserved his liberty.
Be that as it may, the actor made good his escape to a place of refuge,
where he lay a while _perdu_, concocting new plans for retrieving last
night's disaster.
The thought that he had lost pretty Geraldine forever was bitterness to
his heart.
But he felt just as certain of it as if he had witnessed all that had
transpired last night.
He knew well that when he was not by to guard Geraldine, that her
friends in the box would swoop down upon her and carry her off in
triumph.
There would be fond meetings, eager explanations, and all his treachery
to her would be painted in its blackest colors. His only hold on
her esteem, her touching belief in his truth and goodness, would be
destroyed.
He would stand forth in his true colors before her horrified eyes--a
black-hearted wretch, the husband of another woman, who had sought by
the blackest lies and foulest arts to lure her--pretty Geraldine--to
irrevocable ruin.
She would thank God that He had interfered in time to save her from him
at almost the very last moment.
Standish gnashed his teeth as he thought of her joy over her escape,
for he knew well how she had secretly shrunk from him, though out of
her wounded pride she had promised him her hand.
He guessed well that all was explained between her and Hawthorne now,
and that they were already betrothed lovers.
If hate could have killed this pair in their exquisite happiness, then
Clifford Standish would have sent a bolt of it to strike both of them
dead.
In his jealous fury he raged and swore almost constantly. The little
room he occupied became stifling with the fumes of wine and tobacco
that he used to solace him in his terrible defeat.
But he was careful not to drink too much. He did not wish to stupefy
his brain.
He wished to keep it clear that he might plot new deviltry.
Almost any man in his place would have given up the game after being so
signally worsted by fate.
Not so with Clifford Standish. The stroke of adversity only roused in
him a devilish obstinacy, a determination to rule or ruin.
Hate for Harry Hawthorne, and a mad passion for Geraldine Harding,
drove him on to new wickedness.
He spent a good part of the day in seclusion, laying his wicked plans,
like a crafty spider weaving his web; then, disguising himself with
a wig, beard, glasses, and cosmetics, dressed himself in a cheap new
suit, and sallied forth to victory. No look of Clifford Standish
remained except the stately walk, and even this he could change at will.
So, later on, he imposed on Geraldine and Cissy as Jem Rhodes, the
trusty friend of the fireman.
But, before coming on his fatal mission, he had informed himself as
to everything that was necessary to make the daring abduction he had
planned an absolute success.
He knew that Harry Hawthorne had become engaged to Geraldine through
eavesdropping at the door when the Stansburys called on her. He had
also heard her tell them that she and Cissy were to have a grand
sleigh-ride with Harry, although it might be late in the day when he
got off duty.
The unsuspected listener smiled grimly to himself as he muttered:
"You shall certainly have your sleigh-ride, my little beauty, but not
with your Harry and Cissy--no, indeed!"
Between the hours of five and six he sought a livery stable, and asked
for a driver and sleigh to take himself and a lady to the Cortlandt
street ferry.
As the stable keeper was a stranger to him, he did not think it
necessary to disguise his voice; but spoke in his natural tone, and a
youth who was lounging about the office started and gave him a keen,
curious glance.
Standish did not notice the young man, or he would have perhaps
recognized him as the messenger-boy from the hospital where Harry
Hawthorne had been taken after the accident--the youth from whom he had
taken the letter to Geraldine.
Robert had promised Hawthorne that he would at some time pay Standish
for his treachery, but fate had been unkind to him so far in the
continued absence of Standish from the city, and the youth had almost
forgotten the incident until the clear, ringing voice of Standish,
familiar to his ears from hearing it on the stage, broke on him,
awakening remembrance like a flash of light.
He started and gave him a keen glance that quickly penetrated the
actor's disguise, especially as he was off guard for the moment, and
his square shoulders and erect bearing betrayed him to those suspicious
eyes.
Robert shrank back into the shadow, thinking:
"So he's got back to town, that scamp! Now I wonder what he's up to in
that disguise? But he can't fool me! I know his voice and his square
shoulders too well. I wish I could do him up, the grand villain, for
playing me that low trick!"
On the alert for something on which to base a plan of retaliation,
he followed every word and movement, and, to his amazement, when
Standish got into the elegant sleigh, he heard him give the address of
Geraldine, where he had carried Hawthorne's note.
Now, Robert had left the hospital, and obtained a place with his
cousin, the keeper of the livery stable, and a wild thought came into
his mind.
"That fellow's up to some mischief, or he wouldn't be in that
rig--whiskers and spectacles! Wonder if that girl's got back, anyway?
S'pose I go and tell the fireman about it, and see if he can make
anything out of this strange lark?"
Turning to his cousin, who was very fond of the quick-witted youth, he
said, roguishly:
"Seems like that fellow's going to take his best girl for a jolly
sleigh-ride. Puts me in mind to take mine, too. Can't I get off for an
hour and have a little one-horse sleigh?"
"Who's to pay for it, Impudence?"
"I am, of course! You can keep my week's salary for it. Who minds a
little extravagance like that for his best girl, I'd like to know?"
and ten minutes later he was driving in style to the Ludlow street
engine-house.
"Mr. Hawthorne in the house?" he hallooed to a fireman in front.
"Too late, sonny. He left fifteen minutes ago."
"Where to?"
"Don't know, really."
"Can't you form some idea, please?" the boy cried, dropping the jaunty
air in some anxiety.
The blue-shirted fireman stuck his hands in his pocket, whistled, and
answered:
"Oh, he's gone to see his best girl, I reckon."
"What's her name?" queried Robert, wondering if Hawthorne was off with
the old love, and on with a new one.
"I don't know," and Robert was about to turn off in disgust at the
good-natured levity of the other when Captain Stansbury, who was
inside, overheard him, and came to the rescue.
"You want Hawthorne?" he said. "Well, he isn't here."
"I know, but I want him very particular. Can't you tell me where to
find him?"
The genial captain laughed, and answered:
"I can tell you, but I can also tell you, young man, that he doesn't
like to be bothered when he goes a-courting!"
"Has he gone to see Miss Harding?"
"Yes."
"At the old address?"
"Yes."
"Thank you," and Robert whirled his keen little cutter about, and was
soon out of sight.
"A likely lad," laughed the fireman, and then he and the captain went
indoors.
Five minutes later a double sleigh whirled around the nearest corner,
and came to a sudden stop in front of the engine-house. A man got out
in the snow, and waded over to the door, followed by the yearning eyes
of a girl whose fair face glowed like a rose, it was so beautiful in
its eager tenderness.
"Oh, my love, how long the day has been without you, but I shall see
you at last!" she whispered to herself, fondly.
The man went inside the double-doors and looked at the splendid horses
neighing in their stalls. No one was in sight. The men were back in
the office amusing themselves with a game of cards. He could hear them
laughing and bantering each other.
He remained there a moment out of sight of Geraldine, then, with a sigh
of relief, hurried back to the sleigh.
"It's very strange, but Mr. Hawthorne has gone," he said, in that
thick, muffled voice. "He left word for me to bring you to Cortlandt
street ferry."
"That is so far. I think he might have waited for us," the girl said,
half to herself, and pettishly.
"Oh, maybe there was a fire down that way," Jem Rhodes returned,
plausibly. "Go on, driver."
As they started, Captain Stansbury, who fancied he had heard something
stopping outside, came and looked out and Geraldine saw his portly
figure framed there a moment in the glare of an electric light.
She looked back, but he did not recognize her as the sleigh whirled
past. Alas! why did not some subtle voice in her heart warn her that
she was in deadly peril, and make her cry out to him to follow and save
her from the snare into which she had fallen?
The call at the engine-house was only a part of the actor's plan for
lulling Geraldine's suspicions to rest.
It had succeeded splendidly, and, with an exultant heart, he resumed
his place by her side, burning with the desire to take her fair form
in his arms and crush it against his breast.
But the time for this was not yet. He must first carry out one of the
most daring plans ever conceived by man to elope with an unwilling
beauty and make her his by sheer force of fraud and impudence.
And the worst of it all lay before him.
He was succeeding well in his plan for getting her to the ferry, but
after that, how was he to manage?
CHAPTER XXVI.
TOO LATE! TOO LATE.
"'What is life?'
A battle, child,
Where the strongest lance may fail,
Where the weariest eye may be beguiled,
And the stoutest heart may quail,
Where foes are gathered on every hand,
And rest not day or night
But the angels of heaven are on thy side,
And God is over all."
When Robert returned from the engine-house, he was in doubt whether he
ought to follow Hawthorne or not.
"If he has gone to Miss Harding's house, everything must be all right
between them. It must be some other lady in the same house that
Standish is going to take away. It's a lodging-house, and he may be
acquainted with a dozen ladies there, for all I know."
But still, in spite of these thoughts, he kept on driving to the house.
"I'll go past it anyway, and see if the fellow is there yet with his
grand sleigh."
He threw himself back with an air of importance, for he was certainly
enjoying his little outing. The road was gay with vehicles, and the
air musical with the ring of sleigh-bells. New York was enjoying its
Christmas.
Almost before he realized it, he found himself on the obscure street,
and in front of the shabby house where Geraldine lived, a pure pearl in
an uncouth setting.
He reined up in front of the house and cogitated:
"The sleigh isn't here. Mr. Standish must have got his girl and gone.
Maybe I ought to go, too. I don't see that I have any business going
in!"
Smiling to himself at his humorous play on the verb to go, he waited a
minute, glancing curiously at the front of the four-story house that
looked dark and still as though most of the people had gone out or
retired.
He pictured to himself the handsome fireman within that tenement,
sitting by the side of his sweet young love, Geraldine, perhaps holding
her dainty hand and looking love into eyes that answered love again.
"No, I mustn't go in. I might interrupt a charming _tete-a-tete_," he
decided, and was about to turn back to the livery stable, when the door
before him opened suddenly, and a man appeared, reeling down the steps
like one under the influence of liquor or some heart-breaking emotion.
Robert stared at the handsome figure a moment, then called,
questioningly:
"Mr. Hawthorne?"
Hawthorne stopped, looked up, and asked, hoarsely:
"Who is that? Oh, Robert, is it you? What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you, Mr. Hawthorne."
"What can I do for you? Speak quickly, for I'm going--oh, God!
where--for I know not where to turn!"
The words were a cry of agony, and as he came up to the side of the
sleigh, the youth saw that his face was deathly pale, as if from
terrible trouble.
His first fear that Hawthorne was intoxicated gave way to the
conviction that something was wrong about Geraldine, and he said,
quickly:
"You're in trouble, sir, and I think I can help you if you'll tell
me all about it. Get in the sleigh, won't you, and let me drive you
wherever you want to go."
"Thank you, Robert. I came on a car, and this is very welcome," said
Hawthorne, getting in by the youth's side.
"Where to?" asked Robert, taking up the reins.
"Where? Oh, God, where!" groaned Hawthorne, despairingly. "Wait," he
added, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Ah, Robert, this is one
of the darkest hours of a life that has had many shadows. I came here
to see my betrothed bride, my heart full of joy that has turned to
keenest pain, for I found her gone from me--lured away by a scheming
villain that she hates--and what her terrible fate may be, God only
knows, for I have not a single clew to follow."
"Oh, yes, you have--a clew to follow the villain himself. You mean
Standish, don't you?" shouted Robert, wildly, in his excitement.
"Yes, he has lured her away by a cunning trick--" began Hawthorne
again, but the youth interrupted:
"Yes, yes, I know; he has taken her to the Cortlandt street
ferry--going to elope with her, I reckon. But we'll follow and outwit
the villain," and chirping to his horse, Robert drove to the ferry as
fast as he dared.
On the way he told Hawthorne all that he knew, and received his
confidence in turn.
So the actor's plot was laid bare. No doubt existed as to his
intentions to abduct Geraldine.
On their way, just half a block from the ferry, Robert exclaimed:
"There's our sleigh going back now to the stables. Hello, Pete!"
The driver drew rein, and he asked, anxiously:
"Where's the lady and gentleman you took down to the ferry?"
And the answer was like the trump of doom to Hawthorne's sore heart.
"The lady and gentleman, sir? Oh, they took the Pennsylvania Limited
train to Chicago."
"Are you sure?" cried Robert.
"Oh, yes; I crossed the river with them, and saw them board the train.
That is, the man carried her in his arms. She got sick, or fainted,
maybe, just beforehand, and he grabbed her up and climbed on with
her just as the whistle blew. Oh, they're off, for sure. Is anything
wrong?" added the driver, curiously, scenting an elopement.
CHAPTER XXVII.
HAWTHORNE CLUNG TO HOPE, IN SPITE OF HIS TROUBLE.
"Has Fate o'erwhelmed thee with some sudden blow?
Let thy tears flow.
But know when storms are past the heavens appear
More pure, more clear;
And hope, when farthest from their shining rays,
For brighter days!"
The curious sleigh-driver got no answer to his question.
Robert touched up his horse, and it bounded toward the ferry.
"What now?" queried Hawthorne, in a dazed way, so crushed by the shock
he had received that he was for the moment incapable of coherent
thought.
The quick-witted youth answered, readily:
"Aren't we going to telegraph ahead to arrest Standish at the first
station?"
"Yes--oh, yes, of course we are; but I was so dazed by this shock that
it seemed impossible for the moment for me to think clearly. Thank you
for suggesting something, Robert. Perhaps, after all, we may foil the
villain!" exclaimed Hawthorne, gladly and gratefully.
The youth smiled, well pleased at this praise from Hawthorne, and they
proceeded on their way.
The telegram to arrest Standish having been sent, the pair next
drove to Police Headquarters, where they lodged information of the
whereabouts of Standish, who was wanted now, not only on the warrant of
wife desertion, but for knocking over the policemen in his escape that
morning.
"What next?" queried Robert, when they were once more seated in the
sleigh.
"My good fellow, are you not weary of my troubles yet?" cried the
grateful Hawthorne.
"I want to help you in every way I can, Mr. Hawthorne, not only because
I like you, sir, but because I'm interested in that sweet young girl,
and I also have a grudge against that wretch, Standish, for the trick
he played all of us once. So now there's three motives urging me on,
and you may command my services just as long as you have need of them,"
returned the intelligent youth, so earnestly that Hawthorne wrung his
hand gratefully, exclaiming:
"Believe me, I'll never, never, forget this kindness."
"Thank you, sir," returned the gratified youth, and added:
"But what can we do next?"
"You can drive me back to the ferry, Robert, for I shall follow
Geraldine on the first train. Think how lonely and terrified she
will be with that wretch, who has told her, God only knows what
artful story, to get her aboard the train with him. I must go to her
assistance as fast as I can."
"You are right, sir, for she must be frightened almost to death. By
Jove, but I'd like to go with you and see that fellow's face when he
meets you, but I must go back with the sleigh."
"And, besides, I have another task for you, my faithful Robert. It
is to return to the engine-house when I am gone, and tell Captain
Stansbury all that we have discovered. From the engine-house back to
Geraldine's home, and tell the young lady, Miss Carroll, the same
story," continued Hawthorne, mindful of Cissy's cruel anxiety, and
anxious to relieve it by some certainty of what had really happened.
"Tell Miss Carroll to keep up her spirits--that I will certainly bring
Miss Harding back by to-morrow," he added, hopefully.
It was a sad ending for the Christmas Day that had dawned so pleasantly
for the just reunited lovers, but Hawthorne would not permit himself to
dwell despairingly on it. He told himself that by this time to-morrow
he would be sure to have Geraldine back again.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THAT WORD WAS LIKE A DAGGER IN HER HEART.
"Words are mighty, words are living;
Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels crowding round us,
With heaven's light upon their wings.
"Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man's lips have uttered
Echoes in God's skies."
Pete, the driver of the sleigh in which Clifford Standish had so
successfully accomplished the abduction of Geraldine, had told the
truth about the affair.
Geraldine had indeed fainted at some words he had said to her, and
while in this condition he had lifted her in his arms and carried her
aboard the train.
Ere she recovered from her long spell of unconsciousness, the train was
flying across the country in the gloom of the falling night, that, dark
as it was, could not equal the blackness of the fate to which Clifford
Standish had destined his hapless victim.
On reaching the station he had said, abruptly, to Geraldine:
"Kindly wait here for me while I go and find Hawthorne."
In reality he secured tickets for Chicago, and, returning to her, he
said, still in that strange, muffled voice of his:
"The time has come for me to explain why Hawthorne trusted you to my
care to bring you here."
"Did you not find him?" exclaimed Geraldine, uneasily.
"Yes."
"Is he not coming to me? This looks strange!" she said, with rising
resentment.
"Be patient, Miss Harding, and let me explain," he said, wheedlingly.
They were standing at an obscure place on the platform, and very few
people were about except the depot officials. No one noticed the tall,
bearded man and his beautiful companion, with her great starry brown
eyes and masses of sunshiny hair.
Standish proceeded, in an oily voice:
"Something shocking happened to my friend Hawthorne this afternoon, and
he is compelled to flee the city on this train that you see them making
up now. He is watched for at every station in the city, so he dare not
come to you now, for his arrest is certain. His sending for you was a
desperate expedient to see you once more and bid you farewell forever,
or--to take you with him in his flight from justice."
With every word he uttered he saw her face grow paler and paler, her
large eyes widening with nameless fear; but, without pausing for her to
speak, he continued, rapidly:
"He is mad with remorse over the awful deed he has done, and wild with
grief at the thought of leaving you. He says that you have promised
to marry him, and why not now as well as later? He prays you to go
with him now on his exile, and to become his bride as soon as his
destination is reached."
Her pale lips parted, and she interrupted.
"Oh, let me see him, let me speak to him! This is so horrible, so
sudden!"
"You will have to board the train to see him. He is in the rear car,
having slipped on almost under the eyes of an officer watching for him.
Come," and he attempted to take her hand and draw her forward.
But she shrank back in nameless terror, moaning:
"Oh, I--can't--go! I am afraid. Oh, tell me what it is that he has
done!"
He bent closer, muttering one terrible word:
"Murder!"
The word struck her like a blow in the face, then pierced like a dagger
to her heart.
"Oh-h-h!" she gasped, throwing out her white, agonized hands as if to
ward off a stroke of fate.
The next moment her senses gave way before the shock.
She reeled blindly forward and fell like a log at the dastard's feet.
This was what Jem Rhodes had hoped and expected.
With a laugh of demoniac satisfaction he lifted Geraldine in his arms,
and bore her to a second-class coach, having bought tickets for this
with a distinct purpose.
To his joy he found that he and Geraldine would be the only passengers
on this coach.
"The foul fiend helps me! I'll have a fair field for my love-making,"
he thought, exultantly, as the train steamed out from the station.
Presently Geraldine, whom he had lain back on her seat, stirred and
opened her eyes with a dazed look.
"Oh, what does this mean? Where am I?" she gasped.
Standish bent over her, and said, soothingly:
"Don't you remember, Miss Harding? I brought you here to see Hawthorne.
He will be here in a moment."
"But--but--the train is moving," she cried, in a frightened voice.
"Hush!" he hissed, and suddenly Geraldine felt the cold muzzle of a
pistol pressed against her warm, white temple, and a hoarse voice
continued:
"You are at the mercy of a desperate man! Do not move or speak, or I
will blow your brains out and then leap from the train in the darkness.
I swear it. I have much to say to you, and I shall say it with my
finger on the trigger of this pistol, ready to kill you if you utter
one word without my permission. Now the conductor is coming in to
take up our tickets. Do not dare to speak to him or show one sign of
excitement."
Life is sweet to the young and loving, and Geraldine dared not disobey
that hoarse command. She crouched, trembling in her seat while the
gruff conductor took up the tickets and passed on to the next car.
They were again alone, and in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions
Geraldine waited for the next words of her companion.
In his hoarse voice, vibrant with passion, she had suddenly recognized
Clifford Standish.
She comprehended that he had set a trap for her, and that she had
fallen into it. The horror of her thoughts no pen could tell!
He bent toward her as he sat on the opposite seat, and though her
heart swelled with a terrible hate, she dared not utter a word of
remonstrance, for she saw that, half-hidden by his coat-sleeve, he
carried his deadly weapon ready to wreak vengeance on her fo
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