CHAPTER LIII.

"I WILL NEVER FORGIVE HER!"

"Oh, loved one! where art thou?

* * * * *

Doubt whispers in my ear Many and many a fear, And tells me thou art gay while I despair, Yet be the bright hours thine, If only thou art mine, I all the dark ones am content to bear."

The strange disappearance of her daughter had come to Mrs. Fitzgerald with the suddenness of a thunderbolt.

To lose her like this--the child she had loved so dearly and mourned so unceasingly--over whom she had rejoiced with such yearning love when found; oh! it was inexpressibly bitter!

In the six weeks that Geraldine had been with her the glad mother had lavished on her daughter everything that could make a young girl happy, withholding nothing except her approval of her love for Harry Hawthorne. Wealth had been poured out with an unstinting hand, to surround her and clothe her with beautiful things; she had been praised, petted, and loved by the whole household, and the two children, her half-brother and sister, had vied with each other in lovely attentions to their new-found sister.

Nothing had been lacking to make Geraldine happy--nothing except the love she had been forbidden to cherish.

Alas! this love had ranked above everything else in her tender heart.

"The world is naught when one is gone Who was the world? then the heart breaks That this is lost which was once won."

The mother's heart was cruelly wounded by the desertion of her daughter.

"I will never forgive her!" she cried in the first agony of the shock. "She has proved herself the child of her wicked father by this heartless desertion of home and friends, and I can realize how little of my blood runs in the veins of the daughter I bore him."

In vain did Cissy intercede for her friend.

"Remember how young and loving she was, dear Mrs. Fitzgerald. Then, too, her lover was very charming--just the sort of a man to fascinate a young girl."

"He may have been as handsome as Apollo, and as fascinating, but he was not a good man, or he would never have persuaded a young girl to elope with him. Why did he not come frankly to me like a gentleman, and ask for my daughter's hand?"

"Dear Mrs. Fitzgerald, because he knew it would be hopeless. Of course our dear Geraldine must have acquainted him with your opposition to the marriage," said Cissy, gently, though in her heart she thought very strangely of Geraldine, asking herself over and over why the girl had chosen to deceive her so in asserting that she knew nothing of Hawthorne's whereabouts.

"She must have been in secret correspondence with him all the while, but I could not have believed it of Geraldine but for that note in her own writing," she said, sadly enough to the angry mother.

At first, Mrs. Fitzgerald had feared that Cissy was in the plot of Geraldine's elopement, but the young girl's surprise and grief were so genuine that she dismissed the doubt. "She has treated you shamefully, too, my dear," said the lady. "After inviting you here as a guest, and promising you such a charming time, it was abominable to go off that way and leave you in the lurch."

"Do not worry about me. My only concern is for you in your trouble. Geraldine acted willfully, I know, but there is one comfort. The man she has married is good and true, and cannot fail to make her happy."

"Ah, but, my dear girl, only think of what she has thrown away. Why, Geraldine was betrothed to a nobleman from her childhood, the owner of a vast estate in England."

"Perhaps that was why she ran away for fear of being forced into an unloving marriage, madame."

"Oh, no, that would never have happened, of course. I would not have wished her to marry unwillingly, nor would noble Lord Putnam have accepted an unloving bride. Perhaps, after all, he will wait for my Claire. She will be grown up in a few years, and bids fair to be as lovely as Geraldine," returned the lady, comforting herself with hopes of the future.

At that moment a servant entered the boudoir to announce the arrival of Cameron Clemens.

Cissy looked up with heightened color, saying:

"It is a gentleman we knew in New York. If you will excuse me, I will go down, and I will be glad to have you accompany me."

Mrs. Fitzgerald protested that she was not able to see any one, and excused herself to Cissy, who hurried down to the caller.

We have read in a former chapter of the result of that interview, so we will follow Cissy, after his departure, back to the presence of Mrs. Fitzgerald.

"I fear I shall have to return to New York in a few days," she remarked, feeling that delicacy would suggest her leaving after Geraldine's strange desertion.

But Mrs. Fitzgerald raised an indignant protest.

"No, Cissy, you must not go. I have grown very fond of you, and why should you not remain with me?"

Cissy thanked her for her cordiality, but said, blushingly, that she must go back to work. She was to be married in the spring, and she must earn her wedding clothes.

"Married? Oh, dear! And to the gentleman who was calling just now, I suppose?"

"Yes, madame," owned Cissy, with the loveliest rose glowing on her soft cheeks.

"Tell me all about it!" cried the lady, kindly.

Cissy thought that this would involve too long a story, so she said, simply, that she and Mr. Clemens had been engaged years before, and had quarreled and parted. Now they had made it up again, and she had promised to marry him in the spring.

"I have a charming thought," cried the lady. "You shall not return to New York. Stay with me as my companion and friend, and be married here."

"My dear lady, you are too kind--but it would be impossible. There is my trousseau to be thought of, you know."

"Certainly, child. I was thinking of that. Leave it to me to provide the trousseau as my wedding gift to you. What? Too proud? Why, aren't you to be my companion? And, of course, I shall owe you as much as you could earn at O'Neill's--and more," softly. "My dear girl, don't refuse. Think how unhappy I am, and what a comfort you can be to me."

Cissy saw that the offer was affectionate and earnest, and came from the depths of a noble heart, so she accepted it most gladly.

The days came and went, until it was almost two weeks since Geraldine's elopement.

They had looked every day for a letter from her, telling them where she was, and perhaps pleading for pardon, and to be permitted to see her mother again.

But not a line was received from the truant.

"She is cruel, heartless! her father's child, not mine," cried poor Mrs. Fitzgerald, trying to steel her heart against the truant.

But one cold, snowy day toward the last of February--could they ever forget that day--a card was brought to the lady in her boudoir.

She glanced at it, and turned deadly pale.

The card bore a name she had reason to hate.

HARRY HAWTHORNE.

It fell from her trembling hands, and Cissy, glancing at it, exclaimed, joyously:

"We shall hear of Geraldine at last!"

"I cannot see him!" moaned Mrs. Fitzgerald, tremblingly.

"Oh, yes, you will. Come! I will go down with you. Courage! You will fall in love with your son-in-law at sight, and forgive him for stealing your daughter!" cried Cissy, encouragingly, taking her hand to lead her down.

And in a few more moments they stood in the presence of a man so strikingly handsome and debonair that Mrs. Fitzgerald could not help from thawing toward him a little as Cissy presented him. He was well-dressed, princely in manners and appearance. As far as looks and culture went, her favorite, Lord Putnam, could not surpass the New York fireman.

He looked disappointed somehow, and after the first few words were passed, ventured straight to the point.

"Mrs. Fitzgerald, I think your daughter has told you of me. We are betrothed, you know, and I hope her heart has not turned against me with her accession to fortune. May I hope that you will also smile on my suit, and permit me to see Geraldine?"

They stared at him in amazement, the two startled women. Why, what could he mean, with those strange words and that confident air?

Cissy recovered from her trance of surprise first, and exclaimed:

"Mr. Hawthorne, what can you mean? Geraldine is not here. We supposed she was with you!"

"With me?--how strange! Why, Miss Carroll, I haven't seen her since Christmas Eve. Do not tell me that harm has come to my darling!"