"Oh, yes--excellent. The Clemens Company. I know the manager well." There was a start from all, and Mrs. Stansbury said, nervously: "But I thought that company was on the road." "They returned to New York yesterday, with this new play," replied the captain, who was not in the secret of Clifford Standish's villainy. The orchestra stopped playing, and the curtain rose. CHAPTER XV. GERALDINE WOULD NEVER FORGET ALDERSON. It thrills one like a draught of rarest wine, The fine, pure air, the sunshine, and the scene, The mountains, and the river where it glides, A silver chain between its banks of green; And yonder, where the town lies white and low, On flowery banks so fair beneath the sun, Oh, Alderson sweet village I may go Full many a mile, nor find a fairer one! MRS. ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER. Poor, pretty Geraldine, if she had ever thought of death at all, she had never dreamed of ending her life like this beneath the wheels of this great panting, shrieking iron monster, rushing down upon her as her beautiful form lay across the bright steel rails where she had thrown herself in the extremity of despair! But, frantic with hopeless love and terror at the promise she had just given--the reckless promise of her hand without the heart--reason had momentarily deserted its throne, and, conscious only of a mad desire to escape from life's tragedies of woe, she rushed forward in front of the train, and laid her golden head down upon the pillow of death, like one lying down to pleasant dreams. And although her suicidal act was seen by fifty pairs of eyes, it was too late for even the most heroic hand to snatch her from her impending doom. The locomotive was so close upon her the moment she fell before it that the immense cow-catcher touched her, and--even as the horrified shriek of Standish rang upon the wintry air--it seemed to draw her beneath the horrible grinding machine! Did Heaven, in pity and mercy, intervene to save the rash girl from the consequences of her mad attempt at self-destruction? Not once in a hundred cases is a human life saved by being caught and thrown upward by the projecting cow-catcher in front of the monster locomotive. Yet once in a while such a fortunate intervention occurs, and a fatal disaster is prevented. To poor, reckless Geraldine, who had placed herself beyond the reach of human aid, this accident happened, or our story must have ended here with the tragic close of her short life. It almost seemed as if invisible angels must have caught up her doomed form from the track and placed it on the great shovel-like projection in safety, so miraculous seemed the saving of her life.