A CRUSHING SORROW.
"Till now thy soul hath been
All glad and gay;
Bid it arise and look
At grief to-day!
For now life's stream has reached
A deep, dark sea,
And sorrow, dim and crowned,
Is waiting thee."
Miss Carroll was sorry for the young fireman, as she saw how pale and
troubled his handsome face became at her tidings.
She exclaimed, sympathetically:
"Maybe Geraldine will get over her anger and write to me yet. She never
stays angry long at a time. So, if she writes, I'll let you know."
"Thank you, a hundred times over," gratefully, "and may I call on you
sometimes, to inquire?"
"Certainly," replied Cissy, who liked him as much as she had despised
the actor. Almost every one has antipathies. The actor was one of
Cissy's, no doubt.
Harry Hawthorne thanked her for her courtesy, paid for his gloves, and
walked away with such a princely air that all the pretty salesgirls
followed his exit with admiring eyes, and there was a swelling murmur
of ejaculations:
"Oh, what a handsome fellow!"
"Isn't he perfectly magnif'?"
"Who is he, Cissy? A Fifth avenue millionaire?"
"Oh, no, indeed, girls; don't lose your wits! He's a fireman at the
Ludlow street engine-house, that's all."
"Oh, then he must be a prince in disguise; and, come to think of it,
millionaires are not usually good-looking, any way. I might have
known he was poor, from his beauty. He was talking to you about Jerry
Harding, wasn't he? Is she his sweetheart?"
"Perhaps so. Don't bother me! I don't know," laughed Cissy, cutting
short their merry chatter.
Meanwhile the object of their admiration hurried away and returned to
the hospital.
He had no trouble in finding the messenger-boy who had taken his note
to Geraldine, and the youth, unconscious of having done wrong, very
readily admitted that he had given the note to a gentleman, who said he
was going in, and had offered to hand the letter to the lady.
"No harm done, I hope, sir?" he said, regretfully.
"Yes, more harm than you know. The man kept the letter, so the young
lady never received it. It was something very important, too; and now
she has gone away, and the mischief you did can never be undone."
"Oh, my! what a pity!" exclaimed the boy, readily guessing that
here was a broken-off love affair. He looked pityingly at Hawthorne
a minute, then continued: "I'm very sorry I made such a mistake. I
thought the fellow was a gentleman. But I know him, and I'll get even
with him for that trick--you see if I don't!"
"Who was he, Rob?"
"Why, that Standish that plays in 'Hearts and Homes.' An elegant swell,
don't you know? Gave me a quarter, like a lord. But I'll hunt him up,
and get back that letter."
"You are too late, Rob. He has gone on the road with his company."
"Whew! And the lady gone, too, with him?"
"Yes."
"Oh, what a kettle of fish! Of my mixing, too! Indeed, Mr. Hawthorne,
I'm sorry; and, if I ever get a chance, I'll do that fellow up for his
treachery, the villain!" cried the boy, so earnestly that the listener
could but smile, for he had no faith in the possibility of such an
event taking place.
He walked away, bitter at heart over the actor's treachery.
"He kept that letter, and managed to make trouble between us somehow,
the cunning wretch!" he mused, sadly enough, for the case looked
hopeless now.
Standish, having gained such a signal advantage over him in taking
pretty Geraldine away, would follow it up by wedding her before his
return.
"If I could find out where she is on the road, I might still write and
explain all," he thought, with a gleam of hope that quickly faded as he
recalled the treacherous nature of his rival.
"If I wrote to her, he would intercept my letter. He will be on the
watch for that. There is no use trying and hoping. I have lost her
forever--bonny, brown-eyed Geraldine!" he sighed, hopelessly.
As he returned to his work at the engine-house, he felt as if he had
just closed the coffin-lid over a well-beloved face.
Such hopes and dreams as had come to him since he met fair Geraldine
were hard to relinquish; they had brought such new brightness into his
prosaic life; but he felt that all was over now.
True, he felt that he had made a strong impression on the girl's heart,
but his rival would soon teach her to forget that he had ever existed.
But in a few days hope began unconsciously to reassert itself. He
decided to call on Cecilia Carroll to inquire if she had any news.
He went that evening, and she told him that Geraldine had not written
yet.
"But I found out from a manager the proposed route of the company, and
I have written to her, and told her about you," she added, out of the
kindness of her heart.
"Clifford Standish will take good care that she never receives
your letter," he said, bitterly, as he told her how the actor had
intercepted the note he had sent to Geraldine.
"I suspected as much, the grand villain!" cried Cissy, indignantly. "So
now I shall write to her again and expose him!"
She did so, but no answer came to either of her letters.
Clifford Standish was too wily to permit Geraldine to receive them. He
easily got possession of her mail, and destroyed it without a pang of
remorse at his selfish heart.