At the close of the second act, Standish renewed his pleadings for a marriage that night, and in her bitter mood, Geraldine, like many others who exchange one pain for another in mad impatience, ceased to struggle against his importunities and yielded a passive consent to his ardent prayer.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
AT THE END OF THE PLAY.
"A love like ours was a challenge to fate;
She rang down the curtain and shifted the scene;
Yet sometimes now, when the day grows late,
I can hear you calling for Little Queen.
For a happy home and a busy life
Can never wholly crowd out our past;
In the twilight pauses that come from strife
You will think of me while life shall last."
Yes, she had promised to marry Clifford Standish as soon as the last act of the play was over. The act would leave the heroine, Laurel, presumably "happy ever after" but must plunge poor Geraldine into deeper despair.
For though she admired Clifford Standish greatly, was proud of his love, and grateful for his kindness, she did not feel as if she could ever love him as she had loved another. Her poor heart seemed dead and cold in its numb misery of slighted love, and the thought of marriage was repugnant to every instinct of her nature.
But she owed Clifford Standish such a debt of gratitude that there seemed no way of paying it save by yielding to his importunate entreaties for an immediate marriage.
But how she shrank from the moment that would seal her fate, although she had failed in courage to defend herself from it.