"Even if there was a rival in the way, tell me what I could do, mamma, to--to win him back!" "When a man once ceases to love you, you might as well attempt to move a mountain as to rekindle the old flame in his heart. I understand this point thoroughly. You will have to make up your mind to marry him without love." "It takes two to make a contract to marry," sobbed Gerelda. "I am willing, but he does not seem to be." "It is plainly evident that I shall have to take the matter in hand," said Mrs. Northrup. "When is he coming again?" "He didn't say," returned Gerelda, faintly. "But perhaps he may be here to-morrow evening with some music I asked him to bring me." "Now, when he comes," said Mrs. Northrup, "I want you to make some excuse to leave the room, for say, ten or fifteen minutes, and during that time I will soon have this matter settled with Hubert Varrick." "It would not look well for you to mention the matter," cried Gerelda. "Somebody must do it," returned her mother, severely, "and the longer it is put off the worse it will be; the marriage can not take place too soon. Come, my dear," she added, "you must dry your tears. Never permit any living man to have the power to give you a heartache." "You talk as if I was a machine, mother, and could cease loving at will!" cried the beauty. "It is much as a woman makes up her mind. If you worry yourself into the grave over a man, before the grass has time to grow over you he will have consoled himself with another sweetheart. So dry your eyes, and don't shed a tear over him." Gerelda walked slowly from the room. It was not so easy to take her mother's advice, for she loved Hubert Varrick with all her heart; and the very thought of him loving another was worse to her than a poisoned arrow in her breast. She knew why he did not care for her. "I have only one hope," she murmured, leaning her tear-stained face against the marble mantel, "and that is that Hubert may soon get over his mad infatuation for that girl Jessie Bain." Gerelda sought her couch, but not to sleep; and it was not until daylight stole through the room, heralding the approach of another day, that slumber came to her. Hubert Varrick, in his room at the hotel, was quite as restless. He had paced the floor, smoking cigar after cigar, trying to look the matter calmly in the face, until he was fairly exhausted. He was glad to know that Gerelda had not been false to him; and yet, so conflicting were his thoughts, that he almost wished to Heaven that she had been, that he could have had some excuse to give her up. He made up his mind that he could not marry Gerelda while his heart was so entirely another's, but he must break away from her gently.