The audience was in an uproar, cries of sympathy and jeers of execration blending together. The accusation of the deputy sheriff had been heard by all. Mrs. Stansbury's box party looked and listened with breathless interest, and Cissy whispered to Hawthorne.
"Oh, the grand villain! trying to brazen it out! but I am sure that he is guilty. And poor Geraldine, how white and stricken she looks. I'm going down to her to persuade her to come home with me to-night."
"You must come with me," repeated the deputy sheriff, sternly, to Standish, and he answered, sullenly:
"Very well; but first let me speak to Miss Harding."
And while they guarded him closely, he whispered to the dazed and shrinking girl:
"For God's sake, do not believe the falsehood that has been trumped up against me by some enemy just to injure me in your regards. It is not true, and if you will only believe in me till to-morrow, I will prove it."
"I—I—will try to trust in you," she faltered, gently, but in her heart she knew that she was glad of this interruption to her wedding—knew that she hoped the charge was true.
If he had a wife already, he would be proved a villain, and she—Geraldine—would be free of the promise so rashly made.
"One more promise, my angel! Do not have anything to say to—to—my enemies in the box. They will try to turn your heart against me," he pleaded, feverishly.