He gave up going at last, and tried to resign himself to his cruel disappointment.
"If she ever cared for me in the least, that villain Standish with his infernal arts, has turned her against me forever. But let him look out for himself if he ever returns to New York. We shall have a reckoning then, over my letter to Geraldine that he intercepted," he said to himself, bitterly and often.
Those were dreary days to the young fireman after he came out of the hospital and found Geraldine gone. People had always called him cold and unsocial somehow, and he became more reticent than ever now, going nowhere at all except when Captain Stansbury fairly dragged him to the house.
Mrs. Stansbury, as soon as she returned from Newburgh, had been anxious to renew her acquaintance with Geraldine, but meeting Standish on the street one day and asking after her, she was told that the young girl had lost her position at O'Neill's because of her trip to Newburgh and had gone back to her country home in consequence.
"Oh, I am so sorry, for I wished to cultivate her acquaintance, she was such a lovely girl!" the good-natured young woman said, regretfully:
"Yes, very pretty, but a shocking flirt! I got acquainted with her on the street by a handkerchief flirtation," laughed the actor, and he saw that the leaven worked. Mrs. Stansbury did not approve of forward girls, and her eagerness to see more of pretty Geraldine was at once abated.
She knew no better until weeks later, when her husband brought Hawthorne home for dinner, and discussing the pleasant times they had had at Newburgh, he told her of Geraldine's going on the stage with Standish.
Little by little all came out, and she exclaimed:
"Mr. Standish must have lied to me in saying that she had lost her place and gone home to the country, and that he made her acquaintance by a street flirtation."