"The bard has sung: God never formed a soul
Without its own peculiar mate, to meet
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete.
"But thousand evil things there are that hate
To look on happiness. These hurt, impede,
And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate,
Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and bleed."
Cissy went back to her lonely rooms, stirred up the fire to a brighter blaze in the tiny stove, then sat down to a dreary retrospection of past days, her small hands folded idly in her lap, her dark head bowed in sadness.
The sight of the handsome actor-manager, Cameron Clemens, had brought her memories from the past sweet and bitter in a breath, kindling old love and renewing old pain.
"How dared he come? He must have known that Geraldine was with me! Did he think I would ever willingly meet him again?" she murmured, bitterly; then started to her feet, for there was another masculine rap upon the door.
"Who is it this time?" she wondered, as she opened the door.
A cry of surprise came from her lips for there stood Harry Hawthorne, handsome as a picture, in citizen's dress, his fireman's uniform laid aside, his stately figure looking its best in a long fur-lined overcoat.
"Good-evening, Miss Carroll. May I come in?" he asked, gayly, with that ring of happiness in his musical voice one hears from a recently accepted lover.
"Come in," Cissy answered, mechanically, in her amazement, letting him enter and close the door ere she asked, uneasily:
"Where's Geraldine? Didn't she come back with you?"