ter in hand,"
said Mrs. Northrup. "When is he coming again?"

"He didn't say," returned Gerelda, faintly. "But perhaps he may be here
to-morrow evening with some music I asked him to bring me."

"Now, when he comes," said Mrs. Northrup, "I want you to make some
excuse to leave the room, for say, ten or fifteen minutes, and during
that time I will soon have this matter settled with Hubert Varrick."

"It would not look well for you to mention the matter," cried Gerelda.

"Somebody must do it," returned her mother, severely, "and the longer it
is put off the worse it will be; the marriage can not take place too
soon. Come, my dear," she added, "you must dry your tears. Never permit
any living man to have the power to give you a heartache."

"You talk as if I was a machine, mother, and could cease loving at
will!" cried the beauty.

"It is much as a woman makes up her mind. If you worry yourself into the
grave over a man, before the grass has time to grow over you he will
have consoled himself with another sweetheart. So dry your eyes, and
don't shed a tear over him."

Gerelda walked slowly from the room. It was not so easy to take her
mother's advice, for she loved Hubert Varrick with all her heart; and
the very thought of him loving another was worse to her than a poisoned
arrow in her breast.

She knew why he did not care for her.

"I have only one hope," she murmured, leaning her tear-stained face
against the marble mantel, "and that is that Hubert may soon get over
his mad infatuation for that girl Jessie Bain."

Gerelda sought her couch, but not to sleep; and it was not until
daylight stole through the room, heralding the approach of another day,
that slumber came to her.

Hubert Varrick, in his room at the hotel, was quite as restless. He had
paced the floor, smoking cigar after cigar, trying to look the matter
calmly in the face, until he was fairly exhausted.

He was glad to know that Gerelda had not been false to him; and yet, so
conflicting were his thoughts, that he almost wished to Heaven that she
had been, that he could have had some excuse to give her up.

He made up his mind that he could not marry Gerelda while his heart was
so entirely another's, but he must break away from her gently.

As he was passing a music store the next afternoon, he saw a piece of
music in the window which Gerelda had asked him to bring to her. He went
and purchased it, and was about sending it to her by a messenger