Pretty Geraldine, the New York Salesgirl; or, Wedded to Her Choice

Hawthorne was so unnerved by the discovery of his mistake that a cab had to be called to take him home.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR TRUE LOVE TO FORGET

"Have you seen the full moonDrift behind a cloud,Hiding all of natureIn a dusky shroud?"Have you seen the light snowChange to sudden rain,And the virgin streets growBlack as ink again?"Have you seen the ashesWhen the flame is spent,And the cheerless hearth-stoneGrim and eloquent?"Have you seen the ball-roomWhen the dance is done,And its tawdry splendorMeets the morning sun?"Dearest, all these picturesCannot half portrayHow my life has alteredSince you've gone away!"Harry Romaine.

It was impossible for Hawthorne to sleep that night after the sight of the beautiful stranger, Miss Fitzgerald, whose startling likeness to his lost darling had awakened in his heart a fresh agony of love and pain.

He tossed and turned restlessly all night upon his pillow, thinking of Geraldine until his heart was on fire with its agony.

Could it be true what that dastard Standish had told him?

Had he indeed won the girl from the path of truth and honor, to make shipwreck of her life for the sake of a guilty love?

No, no, no! He could not, would not believe it!

She was pure as snow, his lovely Geraldine.

But where was she, what had been her fate since she left New York in company with the arch-villain, Standish?

"I cannot find her by myself. I must put a detective on the case to-morrow," he decided.

The young author, who was burning the midnight oil over a charming poem, was disturbed by his groans, and came in to see about him.

"I fear you are worse. That little outing was too much for you," he exclaimed.

"No, it is not that. I am restless; it is a trouble of the heart," confessed the patient, frankly.

"Ah!" exclaimed Ralph, sympathetically, adding: "Can I help you?"

"No one can help me," sighed Hawthorne, hopelessly.

"Is it a love affair?"

"Yes."

"It is hopeless, I judge, from your expressions. Then why not throw it from your mind? Forget the cruel fair one?"

"Have you ever loved, Ralph?"

"Never," laughed the handsome young author, who only worshiped at the shrine of the muses.

"I thought not, or you would not use that hackneyed word forget. It is impossible to real love—a poet's dream, but an impossibility."

"Have you loved so deeply?"

"With all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind!" groaned Hawthorne, adding: "My dear friend, may God keep you from ever knowing such love and pain and grief as fill my heart to bursting."

Ralph was silent. He saw that here was a grief beyond comfort.

He wondered what was the mysterious nature of Hawthorne's sad love-story, but he was too generous to ask such a question.

He could only gaze at him in tender, silent sympathy.

Hawthorne continued, passionately:

"It is not my way to dwell on my own troubles, but to-night my sorrow overwhelms me! To love and to lose—oh, Ralph, that is the bitterest thing of life!"

"Is she dead, your loved one?"

"Ah! no, she is not dead! I could almost wish that she were, in my dread that she is dead to me forever! And if she is, oh, if she is, how can I bear the gloom of my life henceforward?—the blank darkness of a night of storm following on the sunshine of a perfect day. Oh, God!" groaned Hawthorne, tossing his arms above his pillow in anguish.

The young poet gazed at him in deepest sympathy and pity. He had not loved yet, but he could understand and pity, for to the poet's soul all the secrets of life are felt and known through the subtle occultism of genius.

"The poet in a golden clime was born,With golden stars above;Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,The love of love."He saw through life and death, through good and ill,saw through his own soul."

As Ralph gazed at the handsome face of the unhappy lover, he felt that here was the material for a novelist's pen to frame a most bewitching love-story, and he hoped that some day Hawthorne would confide in him.

Suddenly the young man looked up at him, saying, abruptly:

"Ralph, I want you to take me to the best detective in Chicago to-morrow morning."

"Very well," replied Ralph, going to a table and mixing a sedative that had been used under Doctor Rowe's orders. He presented it to the patient, saying:

"Drink this, or you won't be able to stir to-morrow morning."

Hawthorne complied readily, for he was, indeed, weary of the tumult of his mind and heart.

He closed his eyes wearily, and Ralph dimmed the light and returned to his study, and the last verse of the pretty poem he was composing.

When he had written the last line he heard Hawthorne breathing gently in a saving sleep, and he, too, retired to his bed.

Both slept late the next morning, and breakfast and the morning papers were brought up together for Hawthorne.

Ralph saw that his charge was comfortable, and went out to a neighboring cafe where he was wont to meet his friend Mr. Hill at the morning meal.

Hawthorne made a very light meal in bed, dismissed the servant with the tray, and then turned his attention to the newspapers—the Chicago Herald first.

And as he skimmed over the telegraphic news from abroad, he came across a paragraph that worked a curious change in him.

His face grew pale with emotion, and sinking back on his pillow, he sighed to himself:

"I must go home."

When Ralph returned with Mr. Hill, who always made a morning call on his protege, as he humorously termed Hawthorne, they found the patient dressing in feverish haste.

"Boys, I must return to New York to-day," he exclaimed.

While they gazed at him in surprise, he continued:

"Business of a very important nature obliges me to cross the ocean as soon as possible; and—in brief—I owe you both a debt of gratitude that I wish to repay you by asking you to accompany me on my trip to Europe as my guests. Will you come? I am not poor, as you supposed, in the kindness of your hearts, when you took me in, a stranger, and nursed and cared for me, and a cordial welcome will meet you in my English home!"

They were startled and surprised at his generosity, but Hawthorne would not listen to their refusals.

"I love you both like brothers, and I will not be refused. You shall come with me," he declared, and his cordiality won their consent.

Arrangements were speedily made, and after a visit to a detective, the three friends left for New York.

CHAPTER XL.

"IT IS LIKE SUICIDE!"

"Round the post-office window are pressingA motley and turbulent throng.All eagerly bent on possessingThe letter they've looked for so long.To some come dark tidings of sorrow,To others come tidings of bliss;Uncertain is every to-morrow,And the world like the post-office is."Francis S. Smith.

All unconscious of the fact that she had been so near to the lover for whom she mourned, Geraldine returned home with her mother, and even as they went up the steps the postman followed on his afternoon round and placed two letters in her hand.

She glanced at them, and a cry of joy broke from her lips as she saw that one bore the New York postmark and was in Cissy's familiar hand.

The other one was postmarked Chicago, and was addressed to the governess, Miss Erroll.

And if Geraldine could have guessed how fatally that letter concerned herself, she would have been justified in tearing it to fragments and scattering it in wrath to the four winds of heaven.

If some saving hypnotic power had but impelled her to this course, what suffering she would have been spared. But in her joy over Cissy's letter, she scarcely gave a thought to Miss Erroll.

Going up stairs to her own apartments, she passed the school-room and tapped lightly on the door.

"A letter for you," she said, courteously, to the governess, not noticing how the woman's hand trembled, when she took it.

But the face of Miss Erroll grew ashy pale when, alone with her pupils, she opened and read her letter from Clifford Standish.

"To think that she should have this letter in her hands; that she should have brought it to me, it is a mockery of fate! It is like—suicide!" she muttered, through her writhing lips, and a bitter sigh heaved her breast.

Geraldine hurried to her own rooms and read Cissy's letter before she removed her wraps, so eager was her fond heart for news from New York.

"She will be here to-morrow, to-morrow, the dear girl!" she cried, joyfully, kissing the letter in the exuberance of her gladness.

But the letter contained other news that was very puzzling.

"Harry followed me to Chicago on the next train, the darling boy! But how strange that he has never come to me! Does he know where I am? Is he in the same city with me?" were questions that repeated themselves over and over in her bewildered brain.

She could understand now why he had never answered her letter. Of course, he had never received it, since he was on her trail following her abductor and his victim in their flight from New York.

"But why, oh, why does he not come to me? Is it possible he cannot find me, my dear, dear, love? Ah, I have it now! He is following Clifford Standish up, and of course he can find no trace of me," she decided, and immediately resolved to insert personals in the prominent newspapers of the next day in the hope of reaching him.

When she had exchanged her carriage dress for a lovely house robe, fluttering with lace and ribbons, she sought her mother, with Cissy's letter.

Mrs. Fitzgerald rejoiced with her daughter over the coming of her friend, but she said not a word about Harry Hawthorne.

She was secretly annoyed at learning that he had followed Geraldine to Chicago. She thought, in dismay:

"He may be turning up here at any moment, claiming my daughter, and she is so headstrong, she will never consent to give him up. What shall I do?"

But her woman's wit could suggest no answer to the question.

She was honorable and high-minded, and shrank from using harsh or underhand means to break off Geraldine's engagement.

Geraldine saw the lack of sympathy in her mother's mobile face, and thought, sadly:

"She is still unrelenting. I shall have no sympathy in my sorrow until Cissy comes. Then I can whisper all my grief to her faithful heart."

And she longed all the more anxiously for to-morrow's sun that would shine on the coming of her beloved friend.

And, to lighten her suspense, she spent some time superintending the arrangement of the beautiful room next to her own that was being prepared for Miss Carroll's occupancy. Some of her own favorite books were carried in—Cissy was inordinately fond of reading—flowers were lavished here and there. When it was all ready, the pretty room in pink and silver was dainty enough for a princess.

"Cissy will enjoy it so much. She likes pretty things. And I shall buy her some dainty gowns, and—lots of things! She shall see how I love her!" the girl whispered to herself, with tears of joy in her beautiful brown eyes.

Then she went to her desk and wrote out and sent the personals she had thought of to the newspapers for to-morrow.

"Mamma would not approve, I know, but perhaps she will never find out what I have done. But, at any risk, I would have done it. I cannot give up my own true love! I believe God made us for each other," she thought, tenderly.

She spent a restless night, thinking of Cissy's coming to-morrow, and wondering where her lover was to-night in this great Western city, little dreaming that he was speeding from it in the deepening night.

CHAPTER XLI.

GERALDINE'S SUSPENSE

"Half the night I waste in sighs,Half in dreams, I sorrow afterThe delight of early skies;In a wakeful doze I sorrowFor the hand, the lips, the eyes,For the meeting of the morrow,The delight of happy laughter,The delight of low replies."Tennyson.

The long winter night was over, and with the morning's sunshine Geraldine's heart began to beat with eager expectancy.

A few hours more and sweet Cissy would be here! Cissy, her old friend, who would sympathize with her in all her trials, and perhaps help her to a way out of them.

After breakfast she hastened to her room, leaving Mrs. Fitzgerald intent on the morning papers.

She did not wish to be present should her mother chance to peruse the personal column.

"Conscience makes cowards of us all," she quoted, nervously to herself, fancying her proud parent's indignation when she should read, staring her in the face:

TO HARRY HAWTHORNE—I am safe and well, and wondering what has become of you. Do you wish to see me? If so, answer this personal to-morrow, giving your address, and I will write to you, with instructions how to find me.

Anxiously yours,G. H.

Oh, how happy it would have made her lover's heart if he had chanced on that message in the papers he read that morning.

But, by one of the terrible blunders of fate, he had read, as always, the telegraphic news first, and then thrown the papers from him, in that wild excitement that had determined him to return to New York at once.

Soon the broad, illimitable ocean would roll between their yearning hearts.

Suddenly she heard her mother's step at the door, and sprang up in nervous alarm.

"She has discovered it already, and is coming to reproach me," thought the hapless girl, bracing herself to meet the storm.

Mrs. Fitzgerald came in excitedly, clutching the newspaper in her hand.

"Mamma!" cried Geraldine, tremulously, entreatingly, as if to pray for mercy in advance.

"Geraldine, I have found a startling paragraph in this paper," cried the lady, without noticing her daughter's agitation.

"Yes, mamma," Geraldine answered, forlornly, pushing forward a seat.

Mrs. Fitzgerald sat down, the paper rustling nervously in her hand. She cleared her throat and began.

"You remember the story I told you about my cousin, Lady Putnam, and her son?"

"Yes, mamma," Geraldine replied, again, meekly, and the lady continued:

"I have not heard from my cousin for several years, and I have just read in the telegraphic news from abroad that her husband, Lord Randolph Putnam, is dead."

"I am very sorry," Geraldine answered, gravely.

"Oh, as to him, it doesn't matter much. He was an old man, gouty and disagreeable," replied Mrs. Fitzgerald, frankly, adding: "The interest of the matter centres in his son and heir—Leland, now Lord Putnam—your betrothed! I was surprised to read here that several years ago the old lord and his son had a bitter quarrel—so bitter that the heir was driven from home, and vowed that he would never return while his father lived. He went to America, and all trace of him was lost. Now there is a great hue and cry for him everywhere, for he is wanted to return and assume his rank and estate. But, of course, he will be found, as missing people always come back when they inherit money."

CHAPTER XLII.

"YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I HATE TO RAKE UP THE ASHES OF THE PAST."

"Vast the empire Love rules over—Held in bonds his subjects are—Firmly shackled is each loverBy the boy-god everywhere.Yet we could not live without him,So, young tyrant, let him rove,Though by turns we doubt and fear him,Still we cling to Love, sweet Love."Francis S. Smith.

Geraldine was so relieved that her mother had not come to upbraid her about the personals to Hawthorne that she affected a great interest in what she had just heard.

"Do let me read it myself, mamma," she exclaimed, eager to get possession of the newspaper before the lady should find any more startling paragraphs in it.

Mrs. Fitzgerald readily gave up the paper, her excitement over the news she had just read having destroyed all interest in anything else.

"I shall write to my cousin at once, to condole with her on her bereavement," she said, rising to go, and adding: "It is quite a coincidence that both of us should be widowed almost at the same time."

When she was gone, Geraldine glanced over the personal, and hastily destroyed the paper, though she sighed:

"I feel mean over keeping this from my dear mother, but what can I do? I must not forsake my true-hearted lover for the sake of a mere prejudice."

And believing that she would be sure to hear from the personal very soon, her heart grew light with joy.

Soon it was time to go and meet Cissy.

Mrs. Fitzgerald accompanied her daughter to the station to meet her friend, and when she saw Miss Carroll, she liked her at once.

She had been dreading to see a very ordinary girl indeed; but Cissy's beauty and style, above all her lady-like manners, won their way at once to her proud heart.

And she was so glad, too, over Geraldine's happy looks that she felt almost grateful to Cissy for accepting her invitation.

What a happy day the girls spent together!

They had so much to tell each other that the hours passed like minutes.

Cissy was rejoiced when she heard of the discomfiture of Clifford Standish, whom she had always disliked and distrusted.

"You know I warned you against him, but you would not listen," she said.

"I was a silly, stage-struck little goose, that was the reason; but I have been well punished for my ambition," Geraldine replied, frankly.

"Then you have no further desire for a stage career?"

"No, indeed, dear. My experience on the road quite cured me of that. Why, I was never so hard worked and unhappy in my life. Besides, after all, I don't think I had any great talent for acting. I had some triumphs, it is true, but I believe it was only because I was rather pretty," Geraldine owned, candidly, and then the conversation drifted to other subjects.

"You have not seen my little half-brother and sister yet. They are beautiful and charming little children, and love me dearly already," she said. "Their governess, Miss Erroll, is one of the handsomest women I ever saw—fair and stately, and with that look in her face, somehow, as of one who has an interesting story in her past."

"And do you know the story?"

"Oh, no; she came to mamma from New York, I believe, with very good recommendations. That is all we know; but the children get on well with her, and she seems to study to please every one."

They were alone in Cissy's dainty room, lounging at ease in their pretty dressing-gowns. It was bedtime and past, but Geraldine could not tear herself away.

"Are you tired of me? Do you want me to go?" she queried.

"I could talk to you all night, darling!" cried Cissy, brightly, without guessing to what the confession would lead.

But Geraldine came over and put a coaxing arm around her neck.

"I'm so glad you aren't tired, for, Cissy, I'm just dying to take up our conversation where we left it off, you know, that Christmas evening when we were parted so suddenly."

"Oh!" cried Cissy, remembrance rushing over her in a burning wave.

"You were about to tell me a delightful love-story, and I was all impatience to hear it. It was about Cameron Clemens, you know. You owned that he was once your lover. Now please go on with the story, that's a dear!"

"Oh, Geraldine, how you like to listen to love-stories!" sighed Miss Carroll, with a far-away look in her soft gray eyes.

"Of course. All girls are fond of love-stories!" laughed Geraldine, and she added: "You know all about my love affairs, Cissy; now you must tell me about yours."

And she kept up her entreaties until Cissy sighed and yielded, saying:

"You don't know how I hate to rake up the ashes of the past, dear, and go over all my trouble again, but I will do it for your sake, although I dare say you will not find it very interesting."

"Were you ever engaged to Mr. Clemens, Cissy?" exclaimed Geraldine, plunging at once into the subject.

"Yes," acknowledged Cissy.

"Tell me how it came about, dear?"

"Oh, in the usual way—we fell in love."

"But how?—where?—when?" persisted Geraldine, with charming eagerness.

CHAPTER XLIII.

CISSY'S PATHETIC LOVE STORY

"Oh, would I knew thy heart! Thine eye seems truthful!Thy smile is bright, thy voice is low and sweet;Thou seemst the very counterpart of honorWhen thou art kneeling suppliant at my feet.But eyes we may not trust with truth implicit,And smiles are oft but false lights to allure;A man may smile, and smile, and be a villain;Fair fruit is often rotten at the core."Francis S. Smith.

Miss Carroll saw that there was no escaping the importunities of the charming little tease, so she answered, with pretending carelessness:

"Taking your last question first, I met him five years ago. As to where, it was at the sea-shore. We used to go there every summer before dear grandpa failed in business, and had to move out to the country, to the only home left him, the little farm where I first knew you."

"Yes, go on," breathed Geraldine, eagerly, and with a pensive little sigh, Miss Carroll continued:

"We met at the sea-shore, as I have told you—at that gay resort, Atlantic City. We danced together in the evenings, flirted on the sands and in the water, rode, boated, watched the sea by moonlight, and he taught me how to swim and to row. I was very happy."

"I know just how it was," sighed Geraldine.

"We became engaged," continued Cissy. "My grandfather was opposed to actors, and was not pleased with my engagement, but he relented, and gave his consent when he saw how my heart was set on it. Cameron pleaded for an early marriage, and before I returned to New York the wedding-day was set for the first of December. My trousseau was bought and in the hands of the dressmakers."

Cissy's voice faltered, and she brushed away some pearly tears that had brimmed over on her cheeks.

"Poor darling," murmured Geraldine, caressingly.

"Don't pity me, dear. I—I—can't bear it. Let me finish," cried Cissy, and she hurried on:

"Just a few weeks before the wedding-day, an actress in his company came to see me. She was a great beauty, and she told me that Mr. Clemens had been her lover, betrothed to her before he ever saw me. She declared that if I did not give him up it would kill her, and raved so wildly that I sent for Cameron. He came, and was very angry when he saw her, but she raged like a tigress, and claimed him passionately. He admitted that he had promised to marry her, but after seeing me, repented his engagement, and tried to get free, but she would not release him, so he was going to marry me anyway. Geraldine, you can fancy my feelings, perhaps. Although I knew it would break my heart, I dismissed my lover, bidding him return to his old love, who had cruelly wounded me by hinting that it was grandpa's money he wanted, not me."

"Well?" breathed Geraldine, eagerly.

"Well, I declined all his overtures toward reconciliation, and a few months after he married Azuba Aylesford, the actress. The marriage was not a happy one, and within two years she deserted him, going off with some Western actor, whose name I never heard. Cameron secured a divorce—but that is all, really. Grandpa died in the meantime, and when the mortgage was paid off on the farm, there was so little left that I came to New York to earn my bread. So, there, it was not so much of a love story after all," sadly.

"Oh, yes, it was very interesting, and it may have a happy ending yet. I rather pity poor Mr. Clemens."

"You should not, for he does not deserve it—false to two women, as he was!" flashed Cissy. Then she kissed Geraldine, saying: "Good-night, dear one, and don't let us refer to this painful subject again."

CHAPTER XLIV.

"HOW CAN I REPAY THEIR BOUNTY WITH SUCH TREACHERY?"

"Last night I was weeping, dear mother,Last night I was weeping alone;The world was so dark and so drearyMy heart it grew heavy as stone;I thought of the lonely and loveless—All lonely and loveless was I;I scarce could tell how it was, mother,But, oh, I was wishing to die."

While Geraldine and Cissy were exchanging confidences, Miss Erroll, the governess, was keeping an unhappy vigil in her own room.

In her hand she held the letter that Geraldine had brought to her the day before, and as often as she read it she groaned in anguish.

The letter was from Clifford Standish, the actor. It ran, curtly: