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

"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 dreary
My 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:

"You have begged me not to betray you, to let you keep the position you hold in Mrs. Fitzgerald's family unmolested. Of course, you expect to pay a price for my charitable silence.

"Very well. Here are my conditions:

"I love Geraldine Harding, and her scorn has made me reckless, desperate.

"I am determined to get her into my power, and humble her towering pride.

"You must help me to carry out my designs.

"In brief, I am determined to kidnap her and conceal her in a safe place, where she cannot escape my attentions. She came very near to loving me once, and I think if I am given a good opportunity, I may win her heart again.

"I am arranging a place for her, and by to-morrow I shall have everything ready for my pretty bird.

"Some plan must be perfected then by which to get possession of the girl.

"As you are in the same house with her, and know all her comings and goings, your woman's wit ought to be able to suggest some plan of procedure without drawing suspicion on yourself.

"Set your wits to work, and write to me to-morrow what you can do to help me.

"And remember that the penalty of refusal will be exposure of your past to the girl's mother, and expulsion in disgrace from your comfortable situation.

    C. S."

"The man is a fiend!" groaned Miss Erroll, rising from her seat, and pacing up and down the luxurious apartment, her crimson dressing-gown trailing far behind her on the soundless velvet carpet.

She loved luxury, this woman, and she had sinned to attain it, but everything seemed to go wrong in her life. Punishment for her sins seemed to follow on her footsteps.

So she had put the past behind her, and tried to reform her life.

But ghosts from the dead past would rise up and haunt her, troubling her repose.

"The man is a fiend!" she groaned again. "Why cannot he leave that beautiful, innocent girl in peace? I have done wrong in my life, I know, but nothing so bad as what he asks of me, to lend myself to a vile plot against the peace of a girl who has never harmed me, a girl who has won my liking by her high-bred courtesy, as freely given to me as if I were her equal, instead of a paid dependent. How kind and good they all are to me, and how can I repay their bounty by such treachery?"

All the good in her nature rose to the surface, and did battle against the wrong she was asked to do.

And yet she dared not refuse; dared not risk what her tempter threatened.

Cruel had been her battle with poverty before she obtained this situation.

And if she lost it the dire struggle would begin again.

She might not be able to get honest work; she might be tossed into the terrible maelstrom of women who had to sin for bread.

Yet how could she, who was trying to redeem her own life from a hideous stain, how could she vilely plan to wreck another's life?

It was a terrible struggle that was going on in her breast as she kept her lonely vigil there.

She had not answered the letter yet, although he had commanded her to send a reply to-day. She waited in terror, silent, yet hoping that something would interpose to save her—praying that ere the morrow dawned her persecutor would fall down dead.

"It is no harm, no sin, to wish him dead, that fiend who only lives to plan ruin for the innocent," she cried, in anguish, crumpling the fatal letter in her writhing hands.

Then she gave a violent start, and looked toward the door, her hair seeming to rise on her head with terror.

Did she really hear a low rat-tat upon her door there in the dead waste and middle of the night?

She stood motionless, with her handsome head turned toward the door in an attitude of startled expectancy.

The low knocking came again, and then a low, sweet voice called, softly:

"Are you asleep? It's only me! Please let me in, dear?"

The voice sounded like that of Claire, her sweet little girl pupil.

With a sigh of relief she moved to the door and cautiously opened it.