[CHAPTER XLIV.]
"HOW CAN I REPAY THEIR BOUNTY WITH SUCH TREACHERY?"
"Last night I was weeping, dear mother,
Last night I was weeping alone;
The world was so dark and so dreary
My heart it grew heavy as stone;
I thought of the lonely and loveless—
All lonely and loveless was I;
I scarce could tell how it was, mother,
But, oh, I was wishing to die."
While Geraldine and Cissy were exchanging confidences, Miss Erroll, the governess, was keeping an unhappy vigil in her own room.
In her hand she held the letter that Geraldine had brought to her the day before, and as often as she read it she groaned in anguish.
The letter was from Clifford Standish, the actor. It ran, curtly:
"You have begged me not to betray you, to let you keep the position you hold in Mrs. Fitzgerald's family unmolested. Of course, you expect to pay a price for my charitable silence.
"Very well. Here are my conditions:
"I love Geraldine Harding, and her scorn has made me reckless, desperate.
"I am determined to get her into my power, and humble her towering pride.
"You must help me to carry out my designs.
"In brief, I am determined to kidnap her and conceal her in a safe place, where she cannot escape my attentions. She came very near to loving me once, and I think if I am given a good opportunity, I may win her heart again.
"I am arranging a place for her, and by to-morrow I shall have everything ready for my pretty bird.
"Some plan must be perfected then by which to get possession of the girl.
"As you are in the same house with her, and know all her comings and goings, your woman's wit ought to be able to suggest some plan of procedure without drawing suspicion on yourself.
"Set your wits to work, and write to me to-morrow what you can do to help me.
"And remember that the penalty of refusal will be exposure of your past to the girl's mother, and expulsion in disgrace from your comfortable situation.
C. S."
"The man is a fiend!" groaned Miss Erroll, rising from her seat, and pacing up and down the luxurious apartment, her crimson dressing-gown trailing far behind her on the soundless velvet carpet.
She loved luxury, this woman, and she had sinned to attain it, but everything seemed to go wrong in her life. Punishment for her sins seemed to follow on her footsteps.
So she had put the past behind her, and tried to reform her life.