It was impossible for Hawthorne to sleep that night after the sight of the beautiful stranger, Miss Fitzgerald, whose startling likeness to his lost darling had awakened in his heart a fresh agony of love and pain.
He tossed and turned restlessly all night upon his pillow, thinking of Geraldine until his heart was on fire with its agony.
Could it be true what that dastard Standish had told him?
Had he indeed won the girl from the path of truth and honor, to make shipwreck of her life for the sake of a guilty love?
No, no, no! He could not, would not believe it!
She was pure as snow, his lovely Geraldine.
But where was she, what had been her fate since she left New York in company with the arch-villain, Standish?
"I cannot find her by myself. I must put a detective on the case to-morrow," he decided.
The young author, who was burning the midnight oil over a charming poem, was disturbed by his groans, and came in to see about him.