[CHAPTER LIII.]
"I WILL NEVER FORGIVE HER!"
"Oh, loved one! where art thou?
Doubt whispers in my ear
Many and many a fear,
And tells me thou art gay while I despair,
Yet be the bright hours thine,
If only thou art mine,
I all the dark ones am content to bear."
The strange disappearance of her daughter had come to Mrs. Fitzgerald with the suddenness of a thunderbolt.
To lose her like this—the child she had loved so dearly and mourned so unceasingly—over whom she had rejoiced with such yearning love when found; oh! it was inexpressibly bitter!
In the six weeks that Geraldine had been with her the glad mother had lavished on her daughter everything that could make a young girl happy, withholding nothing except her approval of her love for Harry Hawthorne. Wealth had been poured out with an unstinting hand, to surround her and clothe her with beautiful things; she had been praised, petted, and loved by the whole household, and the two children, her half-brother and sister, had vied with each other in lovely attentions to their new-found sister.
Nothing had been lacking to make Geraldine happy—nothing except the love she had been forbidden to cherish.