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

The ashes still smoldered, and needed but a breath to blow them into flame again.

Geraldine loved Cissy so dearly that she longed to help the girl to happiness again, and she determined to leave nothing undone to reconcile her to her lover.

When they were seated again, she said, brightly:

"You must promise to call on me to-morrow, for I have dozens of questions to ask you, and much to tell you, and I know you will not have time to listen to it now."

"I will come with the greatest pleasure," he replied, his handsome face glowing with delight, for he guessed that at her home he should meet Cissy again.

Geraldine understood his thought, and said, quickly:

"Miss Carroll is staying with me for an indefinite period, and I mean to give her a good time in Chicago. Perhaps you remember that we roomed together in New York when we were both working-girls?"

He smiled affirmatively, and she continued:

"Perhaps you have not heard that I have found my lost mother since I left New York?"

"No; is it true? Let me congratulate you," he cried, warmly, and then Geraldine ran over her adventures briefly, for she knew that he must soon leave her to return to his duties.

"But I shall come back at the end of the second act," he said, as he hurried away.

He was with them every minute he could spare, and Cissy was very angry with herself, for the traitorous throbbing of her heart told her so plainly how dear he was to her yet, in spite of the years in which she had been teaching her heart to forget him.

He was amazed when he heard the story of Clifford Standish's wickedness.

"I knew the man had a bad heart—his desertion of his wife proved that—but I did not dream he would go to such lengths as you tell me. What must have been your fate had you not met your mother so opportunely?" he exclaimed to Geraldine.

"What, indeed!" she shuddered, and then a low cry from Cissy made her turn her head.

"Look! there is the wretch now!" cried Cissy, excitedly.

They followed her glance, and saw the face of Clifford Standish peering at them from behind a pillar in the orchestra circle.

When their indignant eyes turned on him, he realized that he was being observed, and hastily dodged from sight.

They saw him no more that evening, but when they left the theatre he was near enough to have touched Geraldine with his hand.

He had come to the theatre from his interview with Miss Erroll, and had triumphed over her bitterest prejudices by representing that his wife was dead, and that he really meant to marry Geraldine once he got her into his power.

"I will teach her to love me after marriage," he boasted; and the poor governess, who had once loved him madly, and was still somewhat under the glamour of that old passion, did not doubt his power to win Geraldine's heart. She knew how fascinating he could be when he chose.

For one moment, indeed, a jealous pang tore her heart, and she said, pleadingly:

"If your wife is dead, as you say, Clifford, you ought to marry me. You owe it to me, after all I gave up for your sake. You know I trusted in your promises."

"You were a fool for your pains," he replied, with brutal frankness. "You had knowledge enough of the world to be sure that a silly married woman who deserts her husband for another man will surely reap what she has sown."

"You swore you would marry me when Cameron Clemens secured a divorce."

"You were very silly to believe me, Azuba. I was only amusing myself with your credulity. A man never means the vows he makes in an affair of that kind. The time is sure to come when he will meet some pure young girl, and give her the best of his heart. Then he despises the weak victims of his past passions."

"As you despise me?" she demanded, bitterly.

"It would not be polite to say so," he replied, indifferently, and hearing her stifled sob, he added, impatiently: "Bah, Azuba! I have quite got over my old fancy for you, and your sniveling cannot warm over the old coals. I never really loved you—never knew the power of love until I met pretty Geraldine, and the only way for you to get a kind thought from me is to help me to win the little beauty."

Crushed and humiliated by his scorn, she would have defied him if she had dared, but she was in his power, and dared not do it; so, ere they parted, the plot for Geraldine's abduction was made, and nothing remained but to carry it out that night.

"Do not dare to fail me, or the weight of my vengeance will crush you," he said, threateningly, and with a shudder she promised to obey.

They parted, and he hurried to the theatre, where she had told him Geraldine had gone.

Securing a seat in the orchestra circle, in the desirable concealment of a pillar, he alternately watched the heiress and the play.

An angry sneer curled his lips as he saw the new leading man in the play was even superior to himself in the role of the hero.

"So I can never get back my position in that company," he mused. "Well, no matter! I shall marry the heiress, and if the old woman cuts up rough and won't give us any of her daughter's money, we can go on the stage, and the elopement will be an advertisement for us."

As he watched Geraldine in all her beauty, sitting with her friends, his passion for her grew deeper, and he mentally hugged himself at the thought of how soon he would have her in his power.

When her carriage rolled away, and he noted the lingering glance sent after it by Cameron Clemens, he sneered, grimly:

"Bah! what fools love makes of us all! There is Clemens as madly in love with that hateful Cissy Carroll as I am with pretty Geraldine. He has been in love with her ever since Azuba Aylesford forced them apart, to marry him herself. Egad! I did them a good turn when I flattered Mrs. Clemens into eloping with me; and if the Carroll girl ever gets him back she may thank me for ridding him of his incumbrance, though she hates me like poison!"

He turned away with a harsh laugh, and went his way through the gloomy shadows of the winter night, like a thing of evil omen.

And in all that vast city of Chicago where crime stalks abroad under the cover of darkness, there was not a soul more lost to goodness than that of this man.

CHAPTER LI.

STARTLING NEWS

"Say an encouraging word to the weary,
They to whom life seems all darksome and dreary;
One kindly sentence the sad heart will lighten,
One smile of love the existence will brighten.

"Say an encouraging word to the erring;
Sin-blasted, hunted down, crushed, and despairing;
Even when vice his worst form is revealing,
One word in season may wake better feeling."

    Francis S. Smith.
Cameron Clemens had indeed gazed with longing eyes after the carriage that bore Miss Carroll away from his sight.

The old love, stifled so long by hopeless pain and absence, had leaped to life again full-grown within his fond heart.

And although Cissy had been painfully shy, seldom speaking to him, and then only in her role of a new acquaintance, he had read in her glance that she did not despise him now. Something had come over her that looked almost like forgiveness of his fault. He began to have a little hope of winning her after all.

"I will try my fate once more, if she is as gentle when we meet again as she was to-night," he resolved, joyously.