But how was she to escape if he stood guard over her all the way to Chicago, with a deadly weapon in his hand? If she shrieked out to the conductor for assistance, her abductor would kill her on the spot. It was a situation to blanch the bravest cheek, and Geraldine was only a poor, weak girl. No wonder that the blood ran cold in her veins with despair. She could see nothing before her but death--certain death at the hands of the desperate villain by her side. For he was determined to marry her or kill her; and of the two calamities she resolved to choose the last. But--and a faint spark of hope came to her--if she could only get him to leave her side a while, she might escape--might jump from the flying train in the darkness. He was watching her changing face with eager anxiety as to what she was going to say to him now, and suddenly he saw it brighten with a thought he could not fathom. There had flashed over Geraldine a remembrance of his last words: "What could I do in my despair but oppose cunning to cunning, and fraud to fraud?" Her sombre eyes brightened as she thought: "He has taught me a lesson that I will profit by. Perhaps I can thus throw him off his guard." Standish exclaimed, eagerly and curiously: "What have you to say, Geraldine, to my story? Will you accept it for the truth, and renew your faith in my love and honor?" Duplicity was a stranger to Geraldine's nature, and it was hard indeed to act the part she was planning, but her stage training enabled her to carry it off superbly. Her lovely face softened inexpressibly, and she looked up at him with a shy yet tender glance that thrilled him with hope. "Oh, what a strange story you have told me!" she twittered, sweetly, and added: "How can you forgive me for my unfaith?" Clifford Standish started with blended surprise and joy, for he had not counted on such an easy victory. He had expected that Geraldine would accuse him of falsehood, scorn him, flout him--do anything else but weaken in this simple way. But his masculine vanity made the task of gulling him an easy one, for he thought instantly: "How weak and silly women are! They will believe any garbled story a man chooses to tell them." Aloud, he said, joyously: "Then you believe me, Geraldine? They have not turned your heart against me?" She answered, with seemingly pretty penitence: "At first they did--for--for it all seemed so real on the stage last night--the arrest and all, you know. And I was wild with pain and humiliation; so I let them persuade me into anything. But, now that you have explained all to me, I see it in a different light, for of course you would not have wished to marry me if you had a wife already." "Of course not," he echoed, smiling to himself at her innocent ignorance.