"Meet me at the nearest corner just after dark this evening, and I will unfold to you my plans, in which you must co-operate. C. S." CHAPTER XLIX. ONLY PRIDE. "I have loved thee--fondly loved thee! No one but God can know The struggle and the agony It cost to let thee go. But woman's pride usurps my heart, And surges to my brow. To see thy cold indifference! We must be strangers now." FRANCIS S. SMITH. "Will no answer ever come?" sighed Geraldine, as she watched the papers, day after day, for an answer to her personal. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick," it is said, and her suspense was cruel and torturing. Not even Cissy's presence could assuage her pain, although it was borne in torturing silence. One morning, while she was searching the newspaper columns, as usual, her eyes gleamed with a sudden light of pleasure, and she looked up at Cissy, exclaiming: "Only think, dear--the Clemens Company will begin a week's engagement in Chicago to-morrow evening." The quick color flew to Cissy's face, but she nodded with apparent indifference. Geraldine continued: "They will play 'Laurel Vane.' Oh, do you remember the night in New York when I played it, Cissy, and our terrible interruption by the appearance of the men who arrested Mr. Standish? I was very unhappy that night, for I believed that Harry Hawthorne had married Daisy Odell, as that wretch declared. Oh! how it all comes back to me now--my jealous misery when I stood at the wings watching you all in Mrs. Stansbury's box! But, oh, the happiness that came to me later, when I learned the real truth!" She leaned her fair head down on Cissy's shoulder, and sighed: "No girl ever loved a man as fondly as I love my darling Harry, and the mystery of his fate is breaking my heart." Mrs. Fitzgerald entered the library at that moment, and Geraldine looked up quickly, saying: "Mamma, cannot we have a box at the theatre to-morrow night? There is a play that I specially wish to see." "Certainly, my dear, if I can find you some lady to chaperon you and Cissy. You know I cannot accompany you, because of my deep mourning." The box was secured, and a chaperon found in the person of a very old lady, a distant relative of the Fitzgeralds, who had fallen into comparative poverty, but who would enjoy the outing all the more since she could not well afford to give herself the pleasure of a box, and was too proud to use a low-priced seat. The next evening found the three in their box at the Columbia--Mrs. Germyn, the old lady, looking the chaperon to the life in her black velvet and point lace, set off by her silvery puffs of hair. The two young girls--Geraldine in silvery-blue brocade and pearls, Cissy in white, with gold ornaments and flowers--were the cynosure of all eyes. Not a face in the crowded and fashionable audience could compare with theirs in beauty.