Mr. Huntress had confided the circumstances attending it to Doctor Hoyt, because he felt that he ought to be informed in order that he might work understandingly, but not even a servant dreamed that their beautiful young mistress had been married to the wrong man. “August, I am nearly wild about Geoffrey, as well as Gladys,” Mrs. Huntress said, to her husband, as together they bent over the unconscious girl, anxiously watching for some sign of returning life. “Do you believe that wretch would dare to harm him?” “No, indeed, dear. I feel sure that our Geoff is safe enough. I judge, from the fellow’s words, that he has been decoyed to some place, where he was to be detained until the wedding was well over, and Mapleson well on the way to Boston with Gladys. Heavens! what an escape for the dear child!” he concluded, growing white over the contemplation of the young girl’s sad fate if Everet had succeeded in keeping up the deception until after the steamer had sailed. “But is it an escape?” Mrs. Huntress whispered, with quivering lips. “Can the marriage be annulled?” “Certainly, Alice,” her husband emphatically replied, “because we can prove the man a scoundrel and an impostor.” “It will make a terrible scandal,” sighed his wife. “Better that than that our dear one should be doomed to a life of misery. I will spend my last dollar to give her back her freedom and punish that audacious wretch,” said Mr. Huntress, with firmly compressed lips. “Poor Geoff!” he added, after a pause, “I wonder where he can be; he must be in a terrible state of mind, wherever he is,” concluded Mr. Huntress, with a weary sigh. But they could not think of much save Gladys, while she lay in such a critical condition, and they hung over her with white faces and sinking hearts, while they anxiously watched the physician’s every look and movement. After what, to them, seemed an eternity of time, a faint sign of life began to show itself; the heart slowly resumed its motion, the pulse gave forth a feeble throb, a faint tinge of color flickered in the drawn lips, and the chest began to heave with the renewed action of the lungs. “She will weather it,” Doctor Hoyt said, under his breath, but in his brisk, decisive way, which instantly carried conviction and comfort to those parents’ fond hearts. But when she did come fully to herself, and looked up into those earnest faces above her, when reason and memory reasserted themselves, that same look of horror came into her eyes, that rigid settling of her features returned, and were followed by another swoon, although not so frightful or prolonged as the first one had been. It was ten o’clock before the physician succeeded in arresting the tendency to fainting, and she came fully to herself. “Geoffrey!” she moaned, as soon as she could speak, and looking around for the dear face, while a shudder shook her from head to foot. Doctor Hoyt shot a warning look at Mr. and Mrs. Huntress; then said, in a reassuring tone: