When Harry Hawthorne was drawn from his perilous position at the heels of the horses, he was found to be unconscious, and the blood pouring from a wound on his head.
An ambulance was called to convey him to the hospital, and the physician in charge looked very serious over the case.
"It is impossible to say yet whether he is mortally injured or not. He may simply be stunned from the bad cut on his head, or he may have sustained internal injuries," he said to the anxious crowd about him, and then the wounded man was lifted carefully into the ambulance, and driven to the Bellevue Hospital.
Clifford Standish turned away from the scene with a diabolical smile of triumph on his thin lips, hissing cruelly:
"The Fates have played me a good turn, and I will make the most of my opportunity. Whether Harry Hawthorne lives or dies, I will come between him and Geraldine so effectually that when he returns to her it will be impossible to win her from me. Of course, I shall not go near her this evening. She must be kept in ignorance of his accident, if possible, so that she may think he has forsaken her. Ha, ha, ha! what a weary waiting she will have for him this evening, and how angry she will be because he has broken his engagement."
Geraldine did, indeed, have a weary waiting for her lover, and her disappointment was keen and bitter at his failure to come.
But so absolute was her faith in him that she did not become angry, but thought, excusingly:
"Something has happened to detain him, surely. Perhaps he was called out to some dreadful fire. I shall be sure to receive a note from him to-morrow, explaining all, craving my pardon, and appointing another date to call."
She was so anxious, too, for Cissy to see him. She felt sure that her friend would like him better than she had liked Clifford Standish.
When she reached home that day, she rested a while, then went down to the store, and remained until closing time, returning with Cissy, who was cold and indifferent, for Geraldine's non-return the night before had filled her with alarm over the fate of the willful girl.