"Do not worry about me. My only concern is for you in your trouble. Geraldine acted willfully, I know, but there is one comfort. The man she has married is good and true, and cannot fail to make her happy."
"Ah, but, my dear girl, only think of what she has thrown away. Why, Geraldine was betrothed to a nobleman from her childhood, the owner of a vast estate in England."
"Perhaps that was why she ran away for fear of being forced into an unloving marriage, madame."
"Oh, no, that would never have happened, of course. I would not have wished her to marry unwillingly, nor would noble Lord Putnam have accepted an unloving bride. Perhaps, after all, he will wait for my Claire. She will be grown up in a few years, and bids fair to be as lovely as Geraldine," returned the lady, comforting herself with hopes of the future.
At that moment a servant entered the boudoir to announce the arrival of Cameron Clemens.
Cissy looked up with heightened color, saying:
"It is a gentleman we knew in New York. If you will excuse me, I will go down, and I will be glad to have you accompany me."
Mrs. Fitzgerald protested that she was not able to see any one, and excused herself to Cissy, who hurried down to the caller.
We have read in a former chapter of the result of that interview, so we will follow Cissy, after his departure, back to the presence of Mrs. Fitzgerald.
"I fear I shall have to return to New York in a few days," she remarked, feeling that delicacy would suggest her leaving after Geraldine's strange desertion.