It was a tender meeting, but its pathos was quite lost on Norris and the policemen, who were busy putting handcuffs on the three prisoners, whose dose of clubs had reduced them to a dazed condition that made them easy to conquer.
The surprise had been a complete one, and extremely successful—so much so that all three of the conspirators were taken away as prisoners by the jubilant Norris and the two policemen.
And, to dispose of the subject at once, we may add that all three were committed to jail, had a speedy trial, and were convicted of kidnaping and conspiracy. An indignant judge and jury awarded them the severest sentence under the law, and they were sent to prison for a long term of years during which their energies were expended in labor for the State of Illinois.
It would be too great a task to describe the joy of the Fitzgerald household that evening when Harry Hawthorne restored Geraldine to her home, or their grief and indignation when they learned the terrible persecutions she had suffered.
Mrs. Fitzgerald's gratitude to Harry Hawthorne was boundless.
She scarcely remembered the existence of the English nobleman, whose title she had so ardently desired for Geraldine.
She realized how true was Hawthorne's affection when she saw him weep the bitterest tears over the cruel bruises that for several days empurpled the poor girl's face and hands—marks of the brutal blows she had been given by Jane Crabtree while trying to force her consent to marry Clifford Standish.
"He loves her with the devotion of a noble heart, and I will not stand between them, even though he is only a poor fireman. Besides, he really saved her life from those murderous wretches, and it belongs to him," she thought, generously.
So, when he came to her a few days later, asking her for the second time for her approval of his suit for Geraldine's hand, she accepted him with pleasure for her son-in-law.