"Certainly not. Didn't Geraldine tell you last night how she hated and despised that wretch? She ran away to marry Harry Hawthorne, her betrothed, you know." "Oh, yes, I've heard of him--fine fellow, they say. Tell me all about it." "There isn't much to tell. Geraldine's mother was opposed to the match, because Mr. Hawthorne was poor. So this morning Geraldine was missing, and there was a note on her pillow, saying that she had gone away with her darling Harry, and they would be married right away. She hoped her mother would forgive her, as she (Geraldine) could not live without her dear boy." "Plucky girl!" was Mr. Clemens' comment, and Cissy continued: "Mrs. Fitzgerald is almost heart-broken, and very angry, too. She declares that she will never forgive her daughter." "Is she so proud?" he asked, drawing his chair a little closer. Cissy noticed the movement, and blushed prettily as she replied: "As proud as a queen. But yet she is a magnificent woman, and I sympathize with her in her sorrow." Before he could reply, there was an interruption, the cause of which we must explain. Little Miss Claire, the pet and darling of the household, had run away from her governess in a willful mood and hidden herself where she could not be found. Miss Erroll, searching every room in turn for her naughty pupil, blundered suddenly upon the pair of lovers in the blue reception-room. Cameron Clemens heard the sweep of her robe, and glanced hurriedly up. The next moment he was upon his feet. "You! You!" he burst out, with instant recognition, and in a tone of defiant hate. It seemed to him in that startling moment, that Azuba Aylesford, the imperious actress, had come again, as she did years ago, to part him from his love, sweet Cissy. She, on her own part, was so dazed by this unexpected rencontre, that for a moment she stood motionless, rooted to the ground by fear. Cameron Clemens, gazing at her with eyes full of loathing, continued: "How dared you follow me here? You have no claim on me now, nor ever can have again. I loathe you!" His words assured both listeners that he thought the woman had followed him here to work evil to him, and with this explanation Miss Erroll's trance of terror gave way. She sprang to Cissy's side, pleading: "Oh, for Heaven's sake! explain it all to him! He would not listen to me, I know, but he loves you. He will listen if you tell him the truth, and beg him not to betray me." Cissy was paling and flushing alternately, as she sprang up, and said, tremblingly, to her lover: "She did not follow you here. She is a member of this household--governess to Miss Fitzgerald's children. She is living an honest life, and would not wish her antecedents to be brought up against her now." He answered, angrily: "Why should either of us spare her now? She wronged us both, most bitterly, in the past, and did not scruple afterward to throw a blighting disgrace on my life."