To save her life, Geraldine could not help half-believing in the ardent love that had looked at her out of those dark-blue eyes, and if she would but have looked up at the box where he sat, she would have seen that love shining on her still--a love as strong as death, although it was so hopeless. But Geraldine did not look that way, tutored to proud indifference by the cunning arts of Standish. She seemed cold as ice, but her heart was burning with restless longings for her lost love-dream. "Perhaps he may repent and love me some day when it is too late--too late!" she sighed, bitterly, thinking of the sweet SONG OF MARGARET. "Ay, I saw her; we have met; Married eyes, how sweet they be! Are you happier, Margaret, Than you might have been with me? Silence! make no more ado! Did she think I should forget? Matters nothing, though I knew, Margaret, Margaret! "Once those eyes, full sweet, full shy, Told a certain thing to mine; What they told me I put by, Oh, so careless of the sign. Such an easy thing to take, And I did not want it then; Fool! I wish my heart would break; Scorn is hard on hearts of men! "Scorn of self is bitter work; Each of us has felt it now; Bluest skies she counted mirk, Self-betrayed of eyes and brow. As for me, I went my way. And a better man drew nigh, Fain to earn, with long essay, What the winner's hand threw by. "Matters not in deserts old What was born, and waxed, and yearned, Year to year its meaning told, I am come--its deeps are learned. Come! but there is naught to say; Married eyes with mine have met. Silence! Oh, I had my day, Margaret! Margaret!" Poor Geraldine wished that the hands of time could turn back and delay the moment of her marriage, now so speedily approaching. But the second act was over, the third and last began. She was so nervous, it was the greatest wonder in the world that she did not forget her lines, and call down the ridicule of the audience. But she threw herself with abandon into the part. It was so tragic she could feel every word of it. And so the end came. It was the moment before the curtain fell, when the whole company were grouped upon the stage in the final tableau, that--a startling interruption occurred. A deputy sheriff, with his aids, strode upon the stage, and clapped his hand on the shoulder of Clifford Standish. "You are my prisoner!" he said, sternly; and added: "I have a warrant for your arrest for deserting your wife." It was like a thunder-clap, so sudden and so startling. The actor, at that moment, was holding Geraldine's hand in a fervent clasp, and he felt it turn cold as ice as she drew it from him in trembling horror. He grew lividly pale beneath his stage make-up, but he tried to brazen it out by saying: "Officer, you have made a mistake. I am not the man."