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.