The other one was postmarked Chicago, and was addressed to the governess, Miss Erroll.
And if Geraldine could have guessed how fatally that letter concerned herself, she would have been justified in tearing it to fragments and scattering it in wrath to the four winds of heaven.
If some saving hypnotic power had but impelled her to this course, what suffering she would have been spared. But in her joy over Cissy's letter, she scarcely gave a thought to Miss Erroll.
Going up stairs to her own apartments, she passed the school-room and tapped lightly on the door.
"A letter for you," she said, courteously, to the governess, not noticing how the woman's hand trembled, when she took it.
But the face of Miss Erroll grew ashy pale when, alone with her pupils, she opened and read her letter from Clifford Standish.
"To think that she should have this letter in her hands; that she should have brought it to me, it is a mockery of fate! It is like—suicide!" she muttered, through her writhing lips, and a bitter sigh heaved her breast.
Geraldine hurried to her own rooms and read Cissy's letter before she removed her wraps, so eager was her fond heart for news from New York.
"She will be here to-morrow, to-morrow, the dear girl!" she cried, joyfully, kissing the letter in the exuberance of her gladness.