They liked him in spite of his mysterious ways, for there was too much nobility in his face to lead any one astray. They felt sure that he was worthy of honor and respect. "But, Jack Daly," began Leroy Hill, smiling as he ran his white hand through his clustering auburn curls, "I'm going to ask you one question. Do you mean to shield the man who tried to murder you?" "To shield him? Was he not a stranger?" "I do not believe he was a stranger to you. You did not meet as strangers. You had a terrible quarrel. Perhaps it was about a woman. Listen: I found a bloody glove in the snow that night, and it belonged either to you or to him. I deciphered in it a name--Clifford Standish!" "Heavens!" exclaimed the patient. "Then that is your name?" "No." "Then it was your assailant's, and I am bound to put the police in possession of this important clew." The patient raised himself on his elbow, crying, feverishly: "For God's sake! spare that villain, Mr. Hill; not for his sake, no, no--but for a woman's sake! Listen: there is a tragedy behind what you know. A woman's honor is involved, and my silence is its only safeguard!" CHAPTER XXXVIII. "STOP THE CARRIAGE!" "Come love! Until thy face I see, All things seem valueless to me; Nor singing birds nor blooming flowers Can make less sad the weary hours. Friends cannot cheer, mirth cannot move, While thou art absent, dearest love. Dejection holds my heart in thrall Till thou art here, my all-in-all." FRANCIS S. SMITH. "How strange, oh, how strange, that Harry does not answer my letter!" cried Geraldine, impatiently. About ten days had passed since she had posted the letter with her own hands to Hawthorne, and for days she had been waiting in silent anxiety for his reply. But, as we know that he had left New York suddenly, without leaving directions to forward his mail, we can understand the cause of the silence that was torturing her tender heart. Since the day when Geraldine had impulsively defied her mother to turn her heart from her betrothed, a slight reserve had grown up between them that nothing seemed to bridge. Mrs. Fitzgerald never brought up again the subject of her daughter's lover. She was bitterly and unreasonably offended at the stand the girl had taken. So she became more chary of showing affection to Geraldine, and lavished caresses on her two younger children, the charming Earl and Claire. Geraldine, who was as loving as she was proud and willful, suffered sorely from her mother's coldness. She began to feel like an alien in the great, splendid mansion. In secret she pined for Cissy and her old happy life among the girls at O'Neill's before her own mad ambition for the stage had cut her off from those pleasant days forever. "I have a great mind to run away from my grand home and ambitious mother and go back to Cissy," she sobbed one night to her lonely pillow.