Kidnapped at the Altar; Or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain

Chapter XXV.

The shock of this intelligence nearly killed Hubert Varrick. He almost moved heaven and earth to find her; but every effort was useless; Jessie Bain seemed to have suddenly vanished from the face of the earth.

Hubert had been with his grandparents but a day when he felt strongly tempted to make excuses to get away at once; but before the shadows of that night fell, an event happened which changed the whole current of his life.

It came about in this way:

When he excused himself for leaving the drawing-room late that afternoon, under the plea of smoking a cigar and having letters to write, Rosamond, much incensed, had retired to her own boudoir, for she felt that she had made no headway with the handsome young heir. There was no one else to vent her spite on, save the young girl whom she found bending patiently over her dresses, stitching away as though for dear life.

"Why don't you sew faster?" Rosamond cried at length. "You will never get that done in time for me to wear this evening."

"I promise you, Miss Rosamond, that I will have it finished if the velvet ribbon comes in time."

"Hasn't it come yet?" cried the beauty, aghast. "Why, it's almost dark now. There's nothing else for it but for you to go after it, Jessie Bain; and mind that you get there before the store closes. Start at once."

Jessie laid down her work, walked slowly to the closet, and donned her hat and little jacket. After carefully learning the street and number, Jessie set out on her journey. It was fully two miles. The girl's heart sank as she stepped from the porch, and noted how deep the snow was. She wished that the heiress had given her her fare on the street-car; but such a thought had never entered the selfish head of this pampered creature of luxury.

Half an hour or more had passed. Long since one of the servants had lighted the chandelier, heaped more coal in the glowing grate, and drew the satin draperies over the frosty windows.

"Dear me, I wish I had told her to get a few flowers for me!" Rosamond muttered. Then she sat up straight in her chair. "Gracious me! how forgetful I am," she cried. "That velvet ribbon did come just as I was about to go down to luncheon, and I tossed it on a divan in the corner. It must be there now."

Springing from her seat, she went to the spot indicated. Yes, the little package was there.

"That Jessie Bain must have seen it," she muttered, angrily. "She must have passed it by a dozen times. No one can tell me that she did not open it—those girls are so prying. And now for spite she'll take as much time as she wishes to go and come. She ought to be back by this time. When she does come I shall scold her."

One, two hours passed. The clock on the mantle slowly chimed the hour of seven. Still the girl had not returned. Rosamond Lee was in a towering rage. She had sent for her own maid to help her dress, and she was obliged to wear a dress which was not near so becoming to her as the blue cashmere which she felt sure would fascinate handsome Hubert Varrick.

When the dinner-bell rang she hurried to the dining-room. Only the old gentleman and his wife were at the table.

"Where is Mr. Varrick?" she asked. "Surely, he has not dined yet?"

"Oh, no," said the old lady, complacently sipping her tea. "He went out for a walk some two hours ago, and he has not yet returned."

Rosamond started. Some two hours! Why, that was just about the time that Jessie Bain had left the house.

She wondered if by any chance he had seen her. What if he should have asked the girl where she was going, and learn that she had been sent by her so long a distance, and in the deep snow, on such a trifling errand! The girl might tell it out of pure spite. Laughing lightly, Rosamond shook off this fear.

She had never seen a man whom she liked as well as she liked Hubert Varrick. She always had her own way through life, and now that she had settled it in her mind that she would like to have this same Hubert Varrick for her husband, she no more thought it possible for her will to be thwarted than she deemed it possible for the night to turn suddenly into day. Rosamond was almost beside herself with excitement when that wedding was so summarily broken off.

"It was the hand of Fate!" she cried. "He was intended for me. That is why that marriage did not take place."

She had made numerous little excuses to go to Boston with her maid, and always called at his mother's house, making herself most agreeable to the haughty mother, for the sake of the handsome son.

Rosamond had quite wormed herself into the good graces of Hubert's mother. She had not been there for over six months, however, and consequently had never heard of Jessie Bain.

She had been waiting long and patiently, when suddenly she had read of his marriage to Geralda Northrup, and almost immediately after came the startling intelligence of the disaster in which he had lost his bride. And again Rosamond Lee said that Gerelda was not to have him, that Fate intended him for her; and she timed her visit to her guardian's when she knew he would be there.

Rosamond tried hard to take an interest in the dinner, but everything seemed to go wrong with her. The tea was too weak, the biscuits too cold, and the tarts too sweet.

She did her best to keep up the conversation with her guardian and his chatty old wife, but it was a dismal failure. At every footstep she started. Why did he not come?

It was a relief to her when the meal was over. She walked slowly into the drawing-room, angry enough to find old Mr. Bassett and his wife had preceded her, and that they had settled themselves down there for a long evening. Up and down the length of the long room Rosamond swept to and fro, stopping every now and then to draw the heavy curtains aside, in order to strain her eyes out into the darkness of the night.

Ah, what a terrible storm was raging outside! What a wild night it was! The snow drifted in great white mountains against the window-panes, and as far as her eyes could reach, the great white snow-drifts greeted her sight. The bronze clock on the mantle struck the hour of eight in loud, sonorous strokes. With a guilty thrill of her heart, she thought of Jessie Bain. Hastily excusing herself, she hurried to her room.

Of course the girl would be there—there was no doubt about that. With a nervous hand Rosamond flung open the door, crossed the handsome boudoir with swift step, and looked into the little room beyond. But the slender form which she had expected to see was not there.

"Janet!" she called, sharply, "where is that Jessie Bain? I sent her on an errand—hasn't she returned yet? What in the world do you think is keeping that girl?"

"Look out of that window, ma'am, and that will tell you," returned Janet, laconically. "I tell you, Miss Rosamond, your sending the girl out on such a night as this is the talk of the whole house."

"Did she go round tattling in the servants' hall?" cried the heiress, quivering with rage.

"I'll tell you how it came about," said Janet. "One of the maids, who was at the window, called to her as she was going out. I heard it all from another window.

"'Why, where are you going, Miss Bain?' she called, 'you are mad to step out-of-doors in the face of such a storm as this!'

"'I'm going on an errand for Miss Rosamond,' she answered.

"'You will have a hard time getting to the street-car.'

"'I shall not ride,' said Jessie Bain, 'I shall walk!'

"'Walk?' screamed the other. 'Oh, Jessie Bain, don't you do it; you will perish; and all because that Rosamond Lee was too stingy to give you your car-fare. I wish to Heaven that I had the money with me, I'd give it to you in a minute. But hold on, wait a second— I'll go and tell the servants about it, and I reckon that some of them can raise enough money to see you through.'

"With that I slipped down to the servants' hall, to be ahead of her, and to hear what she would say, and, oh! bless my life, what a tongue-lashing they all gave you! It's a wonder your ears didn't burn like fire, miss.

"They said it was a beastly shame. They wished a mob would come in and give you a ducking out in the snow-drift, and see how you would like it. They were not long in making up the money, but when they went to look for Jessie she was nowhere to be seen.

"I am almost certain that Mr. Hubert Varrick must have heard something of what was said, for one of the girls saw him standing in the door-way, listening intently. Before she could utter a word of warning he turned, with something very like a muttered threat on his lips, and strode down the corridor.

"When night fell and Jessie Bain had not returned, the anger of the servants ran high. I attempted to take your part, saying that you didn't know how bad the day really was, when they set upon me with the fury of devils.

"'Don't attempt to shield her!' they cried, brandishing their fists in my face, some of them grazing my very nose.

"'Like mistress, like maid.' We hate you almost as much as we do her. None of us shall close our eyes to-night until Jessie Bain has been found; and if she lies dead under the snow-drifts, we will form a little band that will avenge her! If Jessie Bain has died from exposure to the terrible storm, Rosamond Lee, who caused it all, shall suffer for it! If she is not here by midnight—hark you, Janet! bear this message from us to your mistress, the haughty, heartless heiress—"

But what that message was, Janet whispered in her mistress's ear.

Chapter XXVI.

Jessie stopped short. Then she fell. Hubert Varrick, on the other side of the street, saw the slender figure suddenly reel backward, whirl about, and then fall face downward in a huge snow-drift that swallowed her from sight. He plunged quickly forward, muttering to himself: "What a terrible thing it is for a weak woman to be out on such a night as this!"

And he wondered if it could be the poor sewing-girl whom he had just heard the servants discussing. They had said that Rosamond Lee had sent her to one of the stores for a few yards of velvet ribbon, without giving her her car-fare, expecting her to walk all the way in the face of such a storm.

"I declare, it is a thousand pities!" muttered Varrick.

In less time than it takes to tell it he had reached the spot where the girl lay prostrate.

Heavens! how thinly she was clad! And he shivered even from the depths of his fur-lined overcoat at the very thought of it.

Deftly as a woman might have done, he raised her, remembering that there was a drug store across the way to which he could carry her. For one instant his eyes rested on her face in the dim, uncertain, fading daylight; then an awful cry broke from his lips—a cry of horror.

"My God! is it Jessie Bain? Am I mad, or am I dreaming?"

He looked again. Surely there was no mistaking that lovely face, with the curling locks lying over her white forehead.

Do not censure him, that in that instant he forgot the whole world, only remembering that fate had given into his arms the one being in this wide earth his soul longed for. He had found Jessie Bain.

Mad with delight, he clasped her in his arms and covered her face with fervid kisses. He kissed the snowy cheeks and lips, and the cotton-gloved hands. Then the thought suddenly occurred to him that he was losing valuable time. Every moment was precious, her young life might be in jeopardy while he was keeping her out there in the bitter cold.

In a trice he tore off his warm fur coat, wrapped it about her, and hurried over to the drug store, bearing his beautiful burden as though she were but a child.

"This way!" he called out sharply to the clerk in attendance. "Attend quickly to this young lady! She has been overcome with the cold! She is dying!"

The young man behind the counter responded with alacrity, and hurriedly resorted to the restoratives usually applied in those cases, Hubert Varrick standing by, watching every action, his heart in his eyes, his face pale as death.

Every effort of the young man to revive Jessie Bain seemed futile.

"I should not wonder, sir, if this was a case of heart failure," he declared. "Generally they die instantly, though I have known them to linger for several hours. You had better summon an ambulance, sir, and have her taken to the hospital. There is one just around the corner. Shall I ring for it, sir?"

"No; I will carry her there myself. You say it is just around the corner?"

Feeing the man generously, even though he had failed to restore the poor girl, Hubert Varrick caught her in his arms once more, again faced the terrible storm with her, and arrived at the hospital, panting at every step, for he had run the entire distance.

He summoned a doctor. To him he stated his mission, adding that he feared the girl was dying, and that he would give half his fortune if the doctor would but save her life, as it was more precious to him than the whole world beside.

The man of medicine said it was only a question of suspended animation. If pneumonia did not set in, there was no cause for alarm.

Jessie was quickly given in charge of one of the nurses, a gentle, madonna-faced woman. She was quickly put to bed, and everything done for her that skill and experience could suggest. Hubert Varrick begged permission to sit by her couch and watch the progress of their efforts.

"Do your best," he cried, his strong voice quivering with emotion, "and I will make it worth your while. You can name your own price."

The long hours of the night passed; morning broke cold and gray through the eastern sky, making the soft lamp-light that flooded the room look pale and wan in the dim, gray morn. The white face lying against the pillow had never stirred, nor had the blue eyes unclosed. The sun was high in the heavens when it occurred to him, for the first time, that the folks would be greatly worried about him. During the night the girl's white lips had parted, and she murmured, faintly: "I must push on through the terrible storm, though the faintness of death seems creeping over me, for Miss Rosamond is waiting for the velvet ribbon."

Hubert Varrick's strained ears had caught the words as he bent over her, and as he heard them his rage knew no bounds, for it was clear enough to him now that Jessie Bain, the girl he loved, had been the victim of Rosamond Lee's cruelty. The blood fairly boiled in his veins. He felt that he could never look upon Rosamond Lee's face again.

He was so accustomed to terrible surprises that nothing seemed to affect him of late. That Jessie Bain should have found employment under his own grandfather's roof shocked him a little at first.

But as he began to fully realize it, he said to himself that it was the hand of fate that had led her there, that he might find her. It was not until the sun had climbed the horizon, had crossed it, and was sinking down on the other side, that consciousness came back to Jessie Bain. With the first fluttering of the white eyelids, the doctor in attendance motioned Hubert Varrick away.

"She must not see you," he said. "It might give her a set-back. Just now we can not be too careful of her."

This was a great disappointment to Varrick, but he tried to bear it patiently.

For two long and weary weeks Jessie Bain was too ill to leave the shelter of that roof. Hubert Varrick took rooms in a lodging-house opposite, that he might be near her at all times.

Great was Jessie Bain's consternation, when consciousness returned to her, to find herself in a hospital, with a kindly-faced nurse bending over her.

"What has happened?" she cried. "Why am I here? Ah, let me get back to Miss Rosamond!" she cried. "She will be so very angry with me."

Gently the nurse informed her that she had been there a fortnight. She told her how a gentleman had saved her from the terrible storm, bringing her there in his arms, his own coat wrapped about her, and how he had ever since spent his time hanging about the place, feeing with gold those who attended her to do everything in their power for her.

"I did not know that there was any one in this whole wide world that would do so much for me," murmured Jessie, in bewilderment. "Please thank him for me, kind nurse."

"Nay, you must do that yourself, child," said the woman, smilingly. "And let me tell you this: he seems to be greatly in love with you."

"It can not be."

"I assure you that it is quite true. Every one is speaking of how devoted he is to you. If I were you, I'd— Ah! here he comes now. I will leave you alone with him to thank him, my dear."

So saying, the nurse left the room.

"Little Jessie!" Hubert whispered, almost beside himself with joy.

"Mr. Varrick!" she breathed in a low voice of awe.

Then he poured a tale of passionate love into her ears, but before Jessie could answer he had caught the little hands again in his warm clasp, covered them with kisses, and was gone.

Jessie Bain tried to collect her scattered senses. Her head seemed in a whirl. All that had happened within the last few minutes appeared but the coinage of her own brain.

When the nurse came in again she found the girl feverish with excitement.

"Come, come, my dear; this will never do," said the nurse. "You will be sure to have a relapse if you are not very careful. Think how badly that would make the young man feel."

Jessie smiled. Suddenly a low cry broke from her lips, and she started up pale with emotion. She had suddenly recalled poor Margaret and she told the nurse the whole story.

"Give me her address, and I will telegraph there for you," said the nurse. "To be frank with you, the gentleman left a well-filled purse, which he bid us place at your disposal. You are to want for no luxury that money can purchase for you."

Jessie Bain was overcome by the wonderful kindness of Hubert Varrick. Her first thought was that she could never accept another penny, for she was too much indebted to him already. Then came the thought of Margaret—poor Margaret! She begged the nurse to send a telegram in all haste, informing the boarding-house keeper that the money for Margaret Moore's board would be forthcoming.

This request was carried out at once, and within an hour the answer came back that Jessie Bain's telegram had come too late. No money having come in time for the girl's board, she had been sent to one of the public asylums, and while en route there, by some means she had made her escape, and her whereabouts was then unknown.

Jessie's grief was great upon hearing this. The nurse believed that the bitter sobs which shook Jessie's slender frame would give her a relapse that would keep her there for many a day.

"There is but one thing to do," she said, trying to console Jessie, "and that is to get back your health and strength as soon as you can, and make a search for her. You will find her if you advertise and offer a reward to any one who will tell you of her whereabouts."

Surely, the money which Hubert Varrick had placed at her disposal could not be used for a nobler purpose; and then, if Heaven intended her to get well and strong again, she could soon pay him the amount borrowed. Again the nurse did everything in her power to carry out her patient's wishes. The advertisement duly appeared in the leading New York papers, but as the days passed, all hope that she would be able to find Margaret was abandoned.

In the third day after Hubert Varrick's departure, a long letter came for her.

"What do you think I have for you, Miss Bain?" said the nurse.

"Has the—the letter come that Mr. Varrick said he would write?" she asked, eagerly.

"That's just what it is," was the smiling reply; and the thick, white envelope was placed in her hands.

"I will leave you alone while you read it, Miss Bain," and added smilingly: "A young girl loves best to be alone when she reads such a letter as I imagine this to be. There—there; don't blush and look so embarrassed."

The next moment Jessie was alone with Hubert's letter.

Chapter XXVII.

"Yours lovingly,
"Hubert Varrick."

Jessie Bain read the letter through, the color coming and going on her face, her heart aglow. Once, twice, thrice she read it through, then, with a little sob, she pressed it closely to her breast.

"Hubert Varrick loves me!" Jessie whispered the words over and over again to herself, wondering if she should not awake presently and find it only an empty dream.

He was waiting for her answer. She smiled at the thought.

"My darling Hubert, my love, my king, as though it could be anything else but yes—yes, a thousand times yes!" she murmured.

But even in this moment of ecstatic joy, the sword of destiny fell swiftly and unerringly upon her hapless golden head.

God pity and help her in her mortal anguish, for in this moment she remembered that she had given Hubert's mother her sacred promise, nay, her vow, that she would never cross her son's path again.

When the nurse returned, after the lapse of perhaps a quarter of an hour, to Jessie's bedside, she found the girl sobbing as though her heart would break, and the letter torn into a thousand pieces, which were fluttering over the counterpane.

"I hope you have not heard any bad news, Miss Bain," she said, earnestly.

Jessie raised her tear-stained face from her hands, and smiled up into her face, the most pitiful smile that ever was seen.

"I have heard music so sweet that it might have opened up heaven to me, if fate had not been against me," she murmured, with quivering lips, the tears starting afresh to her blue eyes.

These words completely puzzled the old nurse. But ere she could utter the words on her lips, Jessie continued:

"I wish I could have some writing materials; I should like to answer this letter which I have received."

"Do you think you feel strong enough to attempt to write it now?" she asked dubiously.

"Yes," said Jessie; adding under her breath: "I must write it quickly, while I have the courage to do it."

The pen which she held trembled in her hand. But at length, after many futile attempts, she penned the following epistle:

"Yours, with a breaking heart,
"Jessie Bain."

When next the nurse made her rounds, to her great amazement she found the girl, weak as she was, already dressed, and putting on her hat. Nurses and doctors were unable to change her determination to leave.

"What of the young gentleman from whom you had the letter?" asked Jessie's nurse.

"The letter that I have written is to him," she said, in a very husky voice. "He will understand. I will leave it in your care to send to him, if you will be so kind."

The nurse took charge of the letter.

"I do not wish you to mail it until to-night," said Jessie, eagerly, "for I— I will not be able to leave ere that time. You have been so kind to me," she added, "Oh, believe me that I do not know how to thank you for all you have done!"

"A little more strength would not have come amiss to you," one of the doctors said gravely. "One thing, however, I insist upon—rest until late in the afternoon, and then leave us if you really must."

With a little sigh Jessie took off her hat again.

Remaining there a few hours longer would not matter much, she told herself; Hubert Varrick would not receive her letter until the following morning. She could leave that night, and be so far away by day-break that he could never find her. But what strange freaks Fate plays upon us to carry out its designs.

When the nurse left Jessie Bain, she took the all-important letter with her, and quite forgetful of the promise which she had made the girl, not to send the letter out until night, she proceeded to stamp it as she saw the letter-carrier stop at the door to take up the mail.

It would be very nice to send it by special delivery, she thought. He will receive it all the sooner; and hastily adding the additional stamp required, she handed it to the postman.

An hour later it was on its way, and a little past noon Jessie's letter reached its destination and was promptly delivered.

Hubert had been summoned to his mother's home from the hotel where he had been stopping. She had been seized with a serious illness, and had hastily sent for him to come to her at once. He had responded with alacrity to his mother's telegram. He had scarcely divested himself of his fur overcoat in the corridor, ere the special messenger arrived with Jessie's letter. He thrust it into his pocket, this sweet missive, to read at his leisure, murmuring as he did so: "This is neither the time nor place to learn the contents of my darling's letter. I must be all alone when I read it."

Thrusting it into his pocket, Varrick hurried quickly to his mother's boudoir. With a great cry of relief she reached out her hand to him. "Thank God, you are here at last."

The trouble about Jessie Bain had been temporarily bridged over when he had married Gerelda; yet, ever since, there had been a constraint between mother and son which she very perceptibly felt.

She had always said to herself that he would never forget Jessie Bain, and when he became a widower the terror was strong within her that he would make an attempt to find her.

"Will the girl keep her promise," she asked herself over and over again, "and never cross his path again?"

It all rested on that. But it weighed heavily on her mind that she had accused the girl wrongfully, and she told herself that God would surely take vengeance upon her if she stood at heaven's gate with that sin on her soul.

In this hour, she must tell Hubert the truth, keeping nothing back. She would not implicate herself, as that would bring horror into his eyes. He must never know that she had concocted that plot in order to ruin the girl.

Hubert greeted his mother with all the old-time boyish, affectionate ardor and she asked herself how she could tell him the truth—that which was weighing so heavily on her mind.

She gave a glad cry as he came up to the velvet divan upon which she reclined, and held out her arms to him.

Chapter XXVIII.

He dropped the white, jeweled hands he held, and looked at her in grave apprehension, a troubled look in his earnest eyes.

"I wish I could promise what you ask, mother," he said; "but unfortunately, I— I can not; it is too late! I have already searched for Jessie Bain, and found her, and have offered her my heart and hand."

A low cry from his mother arrested the words on his lips.

"I knew it— I feared it!" cried Mrs. Varrick, beating the air distressedly with her jeweled hands. "But it must not be, Hubert."

"It is too late for interference now, mother; the fiat has gone forth."

Still she looked at him with dilated eyes.

"Would you marry her against my will?" she gasped, looking at him with a gaze which he never liked to remember in the years that followed.

"Do not force me to answer at such a time, mother," he said, distressedly. "I could not tell you a falsehood, and the truth might be unpleasant for you to hear."

"She will not marry you!" cried Mrs. Varrick. "I know a very good reason why she will not."

A smile curved the corners of her son's mobile lips, and he drew from his pocket the precious missive and held it up before her.

"I do not know of any reason why I should keep anything from you, mother," he said. "This letter is Jessie's acceptance."

A grayish pallor stole over Mrs. Varrick's face.

Even in death—for she supposed herself to be dying—the ruling passion that had taken possession of her life, was still strong within her.

Her idolized son must never make such a mes-alliance as to marry Jessie Bain—a girl so far beneath him.

"I have not as yet read its contents," continued Hubert. "If you like, mother, I will read it aloud to you, and upon reflection, when you see how well we love each other, you will realize how cruel it would be to attempt to tear our lives asunder. I am pledged to her, mother, by the most solemn vows a man can make; and though I love you dearly, mother, not even for your sake will I give her up. Only a craven lover would stoop to that. A man's deepest and truest love is given to the woman whom he would make his wife. His affection for his mother comes next."

Mrs. Varrick was too overcome for speech by the angry tempest that raged in her soul.

By this time Hubert Varrick had broken the seal, drawn forth the letter, and commenced reading its contents aloud. He had scarcely reached the second page ere he stopped short, dumfounded; for there the words confronted him which made the blood turn to ice in his veins, and his heart to almost stop beating.

He sprung to his feet and looked at his mother.

"Mother," he cried, hoarsely, "what can this mean? Jessie refuses me, and she says you know the reason why she must do so. What is that reason, mother? I beg you to tell me."

"She has given me her solemn promise not to marry you. That much I may tell you, nothing more," returned Mrs. Varrick, huskily.

"But it is my right to know, mother," he cried, sharply. "You must not keep it from me. I tell you that my whole life lies in the issue."

"Step to my desk in the corner—the key is in it—and you will find in the right-hand drawer a folded paper; bring it to me. This will tell you what you want to know," she said, unsteadily, as he placed the paper in her hand. "Open it, and read it for yourself."

This he did with trembling hands; but when his eye had traversed half the page, he flung the note from him as though it were a viper that had stung and mortally wounded him.

"You see it is a confession from Jessie Bain that she stole my bracelet; it is her written acknowledgment, with her name affixed. That is the reason why she feels there is a barrier between you. Our ancestors, Hubert, have always been noted for being proud, high-bred men and women. No stain has ever darkened their fair names. If you wedded this girl, you would be the first to bring shame upon the name of Varrick."

"Not so, mother," he cried. "Despite the evidence of my own eyes, I can not, I will not believe my darling guilty. There is some terrible mistake—something which I do not understand. I will make it the work of my life to clear up this mystery, and to prove to you, despite all the evidence against my darling, that she is innocent."

"Will you make a vow to me that you will never marry her until her innocence is proven?" she cried, seizing Hubert's hand and pressing it spasmodically in both of hers. "Remember that I, as your mother, have a right to demand this—you owe it to me."

For a moment Hubert Varrick hesitated.

"If you are so sure of her innocence, surely you need have no hesitation," his mother whispered.

Hubert Varrick did not speak for an instant; a thousand tumultuous thoughts surged through his brain.

Slowly, solemnly, he turned toward his mother.

"So sure am I that I can prove her innocence, that I will accede to your request, mother dear," he answered, in a clear, firm voice, his eyes meeting her own.

"I am content," murmured Mrs. Varrick, sinking back upon her pillow.

She said to herself that if he followed that condition he would never wed Jessie Bain.

Hubert rose quickly to his feet.

"I will take you at your word, mother," he declared promptly, rising suddenly to his feet. "You shall hear from me in regard to this within three days' time. I am going direct to Jessie. If your symptoms should change for the worse, telegraph me."

Kissing his mother hurriedly, and before she could make any protest to this arrangement, Hubert hurried out of the room and out of the house.

He was barely in time to catch the train for Albany, and arrived there just as the dusk was creeping up and the golden-hearted stars were coming out.

He made his way with all haste to the place where he had left Jessie. He must see her, and have a talk with her. He would not take "no" for an answer.

The neat little maid who opened the door for him recognized the gentleman at once.

He had placed a bill in her hand at parting, and she was not likely to forget the handsome young man.

He was shown into the visitors' sitting-room.

"I should like to be permitted to see Miss Bain," he said. "Will you kindly take that message for me to the matron in charge?"

The girl looked at him with something very like astonishment in her face.

"Did you not know, sir—" she asked, somewhat curiously, as she hesitated on the threshold.

"Know what?" he demanded, brusquely. "What is there to know, my good girl?"

"Miss Bain has gone, sir," she replied. "She left the place for good quite an hour ago!"

Varrick was completely astounded. He could scarcely believe the evidence of his own senses; his ears must have deceived him.

At this juncture the matron entered. She corroborated the maid's statement— Miss Bain had left the place quite an hour before.

"Could you tell me where she went?" he asked.

"She intended taking the train for New York. She was very weak, by no means able to leave here, sir. We tried to keep her; but it was of no use; she had certainly made up her mind to go, and go she did!"

It seemed to Hubert Varrick that life was leaving his body.

How he made his way out of the place, he never afterward remembered.

There was but one other course to pursue, and that was, to go to New York by the first outgoing train, and try to find her.

Hailing a passing cab, he sprang into it, remembering just in time that the New York express left the depot at seven o'clock. If the man drove sharp he might make it, but it would be as much as he could do.

He gave the man a double fare, who, whipping up his horses, fairly whirled down the snow-packed road in the direction of the depot.

"I am afraid that I can not make the train, sir," called the driver, hoarsely, as Hubert Varrick leaned out of the window, crying excitedly that he would quadruple his fare if he would make the horses go faster.

Again he plied his whip to the flanks of the horses, but they could not increase their speed, for they were doing their very best at that moment.

Nearer and nearer sounded the shrieking whistle of the far-off train. They reached the depot just as the train swept round the bend of the road.

"Thank God, I am in time!" cried Hubert Varrick, as he rushed along the platform. "If I had missed this train, I should have had to wait until to-morrow morning. I shall have little enough time to purchase my ticket. I—"

The rest of the sentence was never uttered. He stopped short. Standing on the platform, watching with wistful eyes the incoming train, was Jessie Bain!

A great cry broke from his lips. In an instant he was standing beside her, her hands in his, crying excitedly:

"Oh! Jessie, Jessie. Thank Heaven I am in time!"

"Mr. Varrick!" she gasped, faintly. At that instant the train stopped at the station.

"You must not go on board!" he cried, excitedly. "Jessie, you must listen to what I have to say to you," he commanded. "You must not go to New York."

There was a sternness in his voice that held her spell-bound for an instant.

"Come into the waiting-room," he said. "I must speak with you."

Drawing her hand within his arm, he fairly compelled her to obey him; and as they crossed the threshold the train thundered on again.

The room was crowded. This certainly was not the time or place to utter the burning words that were on his lips. An idea occurred to him. He would get a coach, drive about the city, through the park, and as they rode, he could talk with her entirely free from interruption.

Hailing a coach that stood by the curbstone, he proceeded to assist his companion into it. She was too overcome by emotion to exert any will of her own.

He took his seat by her side, and a moment later they were bowling slowly down the wide avenue through which he had driven so furiously but a little while before.

"Now, Jessie," he began, tremulously; "listen to me, I pray you. I have traveled all the way back to Boston for your dear sake, to see you, to hold your hands, to speak with you, and to tell you I do not consider the little tear-blotted note you sent me, a fitting answer to my letter. I can not take 'no,' for an answer, Jessie, dear. You could not mean it. When I read what you wrote me, in answer to my burning words of love, it nearly unmanned me. You said, in that little note, that you did care for me; you acknowledged it. Now, I ask you, why, if this be true, would you doom me, as well as yourself, to a life of misery. You say there is a mystery, deep and fathomless, which separates us from each other for all time to come? This I must refuse to believe. You say it is something which my mother knows? Will you confess to me, Jessie, my darling, my precious one, just what you mean? Remember that the happiness of two lives hangs upon your answer."

The girl was crying as though her heart would break, her lovely face buried in her hands.

He sat by her side very gravely, waiting until the storm of tears should have subsided.

He well knew that it was better that such grief, which seemed to rend her very soul, should waste itself in tears. At length, when her sobs grew fainter and she became calmer, he ventured to speak once more.

"I beg you to tell me, Jessie," he went on, "just what it is that holds our two lives asunder."

He longed with all his soul to take her in his arms, pillow the golden head on his breast, and let her weep her grief out there. But he must not; he must control the longing that was eating his heart away.

"Be candid with me, Jessie," he said, his voice trembling and husky. "Do not conceal anything from me. The hour has come when nothing but frankness will answer, and I must know all, from beginning to end. What is it, I ask again, that my mother knows which you alluded to in your note, saying that it had the power to part us? Dear little Jessie, sweet one, confide in me! I repeat, keep nothing from me."

Through the tears which lay trembling on her long lashes, Jessie raised her lovely blue eyes and looked at him, her lips quivering piteously.

For an instant she could not speak, so great was her emotion; then by a mighty effort she controlled herself, and answered in a broken voice:

"I— I made a solemn pledge to your mother, the day I left your house, that I would never cross your path again, that I— I should do my best to avoid you and steal quietly away out of your life. I— I signed the paper and left it in your mother's hands. That, and that alone, satisfied her. Then I went away out of your life, though it almost broke my heart to do so. I— I have kept my promise to her. I meant to go away and to never look upon your face, even though I knew that Heaven had answered my prayer and given me your love—which I prize more than life itself—when everything else in this world was taken from me."

As Varrick listened, a terrible whiteness had overspread his face.

"Answer me this, Jessie," he asked; in the greatest agitation: "Why did you sign the other paper which you left with my mother that day? Answer me, Jessie—you must!"

"I signed no other paper than that which contained the promise I have just spoken to you about," the girl returned earnestly, puzzled as to what he could mean.

For answer, he drew forth the note which he had taken from his mother's writing-desk and placed in his breast pocket, and put it in Jessie's hand.

"This note has been written by my mother," he said, "and this is your signature, which I would know anywhere in the world, my darling," he went on, huskily. "Oh, my love, my love! explain it to me!"

She had taken the paper from his hands, and run her eyes rapidly over the written words. They seemed to stand out in letters of fire. Her brain whirled around; her very senses seemed leaving her.

"Oh, Hubert! Hubert! listen to me!" she cried, forgetful of her surroundings, as she flung herself on her knees at his feet. "This is not the paper I signed, although the signature is so startlingly like my own that I am bewildered. I signed a paper which said that I would never cross your path again; but not this one—oh, not this one! I— I never saw this paper before. Oh, Hubert— Mr. Varrick— I plead with you not to believe that I could ever have signed a paper acknowledging that I took your mother's diamond bracelet! I have never taken anything which did not belong to me in all my life. I would have died first—starved on the street!"

Words can not describe what the thoughts were that coursed through Hubert Varrick's brain as he slowly raised her.

"Tell me, Jessie," he cried, "did you read over the paper which you signed?"

"No," she sobbed; "I did not read it. Your mother wrote it, telling me what was in it—that I was never to cross your path again, because she wished it so, and I signed it without reading it. Indeed, I could not have read a line to have saved my life, my eyes were so blinded with tears, just as they are now."

A grayish pallor spread over his face; a startling revelation had come to him: his mother had written the terrible document, every line of which she knew to be false, relying upon the girl's agitation not to discover its contents ere she signed it!

Yes, that was the solution of the mystery; he saw through the whole contemptible affair.

Only his mother's illness prevented him from stopping at the first telegraph office and sending a dispatch to her to let her know that he had discovered all.

"You do not believe it—you will not believe that I took the bracelet?" Jessie was sobbing out. "Speak to me, oh, I implore you, and tell me that you believe me innocent!"

He turned suddenly and took her in his arms.

"Believe in your innocence, my darling?" he answered, suddenly. "Yes, before Heaven I do! You are innocent—innocent as a little child. I intend to take you directly to my mother, and this mystery shall then be unraveled."

Despite the girl's protestations, he insisted that it must be so, and the first outgoing train bore them on their way back to Boston.

It so happened that he found a lady acquaintance on board, an old friend of his mother, who willingly took charge of Jessie on the journey.

"Keep up a brave heart, little Jessie," whispered Hubert, as he bid the ladies good-night. "All will come out well. Nothing on earth shall take you from me again."

Chapter XXIX.

"Now that I have seen you safely home, with Miss Bain beneath your mother's roof, I shall have to hurry on," declared his mother's friend. "I know your mother will forgive me, Hubert, for not stopping a few days, or at least a few hours, when you explain to her that it is a necessity for me to resume my journey. You must see me back to the carriage."

Persuasion was of no avail. Leaving Jessie in the vestibule for a few moments, Hubert complied with her request. When he returned a moment later, he found her in earnest conversation with the servant.

"Oh, Mr. Varrick— Hubert!" Jessie cried excitedly. "You must go to your mother at once. I hear she is very, very ill, and that all of the servants, for some reason, have fled from the house. Even the nurse, for some reason, refused to remain. Oh, Mr. Varrick!" she repeated, eagerly, "let me go to her bedside and nurse her. She is out of her head, and will never know."

Tears rushed to Varrick's eyes.

"You are an angel, Jessie!" he cried, kissing her hand warmly. "It shall be as you wish. Follow me!"

They entered noiselessly. Mrs. Varrick was tossing restlessly to and fro on a bed of pain. The family doctor was bending over her, with a look of alarm in his face. Hubert stole softly to the bedside, Jessie following.

All in an instant, before the doctor could spring forward to prevent them, both had suddenly bent down and kissed the sufferer repeatedly.

"Great God!" gasped the doctor, "the mischief has been done! I did not have an instant's time to warn you. Your mother is alarmingly ill with that dread disease, small-pox! I am forced to say to you that after what has occurred—your contact with my patient, I shall be obliged to quarantine you both."

"Great God!" Hubert cried, turning pale as death as he looked at Jessie.

"Do not fear for me, Mr. Varrick," she said, "I am not afraid."

"For myself I do not care, for I passed through such a siege when I was a child, and came out of it unscathed. But you, Jessie? Oh, it must not be—it shall not be—that you, too, must suffer this dread contagion!"

"It is too late now for useless reflection. It would be better to face the consequences than seek to avoid them. If it is destined that either one of you should succumb to this disease, you could not avoid it, believe me, though you flew to the other end of the world. Take it very calmly, and hope for the best. Forget your danger, now that you are face to face with it, and let us do our utmost to relieve my suffering patient."

"He is right," said Jessie.

In this Hubert Varrick was forced to concur.

"Heaven bless you for your kindness!" he murmured.

The touch of those cool, soft hands on Mrs. Varrick's burning brow had a most marvelous effect in soothing her. During the fortnight that followed she would have no one else by her bedside but Jessie; she would take medicine from no one else. She called for her incessantly while she was out of her sight.

"If she recovers, it will all be due to you, Miss Bain," the doctor said one day.

There came a day when the ravages of the terrible disease had worn themselves out, and Mrs. Varrick opened her eyes to consciousness. Her life had been spared; but, ah! never again in this world would any one look with anything save horror upon her. Her son dreaded the hour when she should look in the mirror and see the poor scarred face reflected there.

When she realized that she owed her very life to the girl who had watched over her so ceaselessly and that that girl was Jessie Bain, her emotion was great. She buried her poor face in her hands, and they heard her murmur brokenly:

"God is surely heaping coals of fire upon my head."

On the very day that she was able to leave her couch for the first time, and to lean on that strong brave young arm that helped her into the sunny drawing-room, Jessie herself was stricken down.

In those days that had dragged their slow flight by, Mrs. Varrick had experienced a great change of heart. She had learned to love Jessie a thousand times more than she ever hated her. And now when this calamity came upon the girl, her grief knew no bounds.

What if the girl should die, and Hubert should still believe her guilty of the theft of the diamonds. God would never forgive her for her sin. There was but one way to atone for it, and that was to make a full confession.

It was the hardest task of her life when her son, whom she had sent for, stood before her. When she attempted to utter the words, to lead to the subject uppermost in her mind, her heart grew faint, her lips faltered.

"Come and sit beside me, Hubert; I have something to tell you," she said.

He did as she requested, attempting to take her thin, white hands down from her poor disfigured face.

"Promise, beforehand, that you will not hate me."

"I could not hate you, mother," he said, gently.

Burying her face still deeper in the folds of her handkerchief, while her form swayed to and fro, she told him all in broken words. At length she had finished, and a silence like death fell between them. Raising her head slowly from the folds of her handkerchief, she cast her eyes fearfully in his direction. To her intense amazement, she saw him leaning back comfortably in his seat.

"Hubert!" she gasped, "are you not bitterly angry with me? Speak!"

"I was very angry, I confess, mother, when this was first known to me; but I have had time since to think the matter over calmly. You acted under the pressure of intense excitement, I concluded, and pride, which was always your besetting sin, mother; and that gained the ascendency over you to the extent that you would rather have seen Jessie in a prison cell, though she was innocent, than see her my wife!"

"You knew it before I told you?" she exclaimed. "But how did you find out?"

"That must be my secret, for the time being, mother," he returned. "Be thankful that no harm came from your nefarious scheme. If Jessie had been thrown into a prison cell and persecuted unjustly, I admit that I should never have forgiven you while life lasted. Now, every thought is swallowed up in the fear that her illness may terminate as yours did, mother. But this I say to you: if she were the most-scarred creature on the face of the earth, I should still love her and wish to marry her."

"I should not oppose it, my son," said his mother.

The terrible calamity which Mrs. Varrick had so long dreaded had not happened—her son had not turned against her.

We will pass over the fortnight that followed. Heaven had been merciful. Despite the fact that she had nursed Mrs. Varrick day and night, she herself had suffered but a slight attack of the dread contagion, and there were tears in both Hubert's and his mother's eyes when the doctor informed them that there would be no trace of the dread disease on the girl's fair face.

The road back to health and strength was but a short one, for Jessie had youth to help her in the great struggle. When she found that Mrs. Varrick had become reconciled to her, and had even consented to her marriage with her idolized son, and was laying plans for it, her joy knew no bounds.

It was the happiest household ever seen that gathered around Jessie Bain when she was able to sit up. All the old servants were so glad to see Jessie her bright, merry self once more, and to have their young master Hubert and pretty Jessie reunited. They talked of their coming wedding as the greatest event that would ever take place there, and they made the greatest preparations for the coming marriage.

Again cards were sent out, and the first person who received one was Rosamond Lee.

Her amazement and rage knew no bounds. She had never heard from Jessie Bain since the hour she was sent out in that terrible storm. Nor had she ever seen Hubert Varrick since, nor heard from him. Somehow it had run in her mind that he might have met the girl, and she had told him all that had happened; and she decided that, under existing circumstances, she had better remain away from the wedding.

"There is no use in my remaining in this house, with this fussy old man and woman," she said flinging down the invitation, which she had been reading aloud to her maid. "I only came to this lonely place with the hope of winning handsome Hubert Varrick, and I have fooled away my time here all in vain, it seems. We had better get away at once."

Despite the protestations of old Mr. and Mrs. Bassett, Rosamond Lee and her maid left the house that very day.

The servants of the place were indeed glad to get rid of them; and as they were being driven away in the Bassett carriage, the maid, looking back by chance, saw every one of them standing at an upper window, making wild grimaces at them, which Rosamond Lee's maid venomously returned, saying to herself that she should never see them again.

Rosamond Lee's home was in New York City, and it was not until she got on the train bound for the metropolis that she gave full vent to her feelings and railed bitterly against the unkindness of fate in giving a grand man like Hubert Varrick to such a little nobody as that miserable, white-faced Jessie Bain.

"I hope she will never be happy with him!" she added, in a burst of bitterness.

When they reached the city, they drove directly to the boarding-house where they were accustomed to stop. As strange fate would have it, it was the very boarding-house beneath whose roof Jessie Bain and Margaret had found shelter when Jessie had come to New York in search of work. The landlady was very glad to welcome back Miss Rosamond Lee and her maid.

"You came back quite unexpectedly, Miss Lee," said the landlady. "We can get your room ready, however, without delay. There is a young girl in the little hall bedroom that your maid has always had. Still, as she doesn't pay anything, she can be moved. By the way, I want you to take notice of her when you see her. She's as pretty as a picture but she's not quite right in her head.

"She was brought here by a young girl who took pity on her, and while the young girl was off securing work, she suddenly became so unmanageable that we thought the best thing to do was to send her to an asylum. But on her way there she made her escape from the vehicle. The driver never missed her until he had reached his destination.

"Search was made for her, and for many weeks we attempted to trace her, but it was all of no avail. Only last night, by the merest chance, we came face to face with her at a flower-stand, where they had taken her for her pretty face, to make sales for them. I brought her home at once, for there had been a good reward offered to any one who would find her.

"Here another difficulty presented itself.

"The young girl who caused the reward to be offered is now missing—at least, I can not find her."

"Why don't you insert a 'personal' in the paper?" drawled Rosamond Lee.

"That would be a capital idea. Gracious! I wonder that I did not think of it before," said the landlady. "But, dear me! I'm not a good hand at composing anything of that kind for the paper."

"I'll write it out for you, if you like," said Rosamond, indolently.

The landlady took her at her word.

"The name of the young girl whom I wish to find is Jessie Bain," she began.

A great cry broke from Rosamond Lee's lips, and her face grew ashen.

"Did I hear you say Jessie Bain?" she asked.

"Yes; that was the name," returned the landlady, wonderingly. "Do you know her?"

"Yes— I don't know. Describe her. It must be one and the same person," she added under her breath.

"I shouldn't be at all surprised," continued the woman, "for she went to Albany, the very place you have just come from."

"It's the same one," cried Rosamond Lee. "Tell me the story of this demented girl over again in all its details. I was not paying attention before. I did not half listen to all you said."

The landlady went over the story a second time for Rosamond's benefit.

Miss Lee meanwhile paced the room excitedly up and down.

"I'll tell you what I think," she cried excitedly. "Those two girls are surely adventuresses of the worst type. You say at first that she called the demented girl her sister, and then afterward admitted that she was not. You see, there was something wrong from the start. Now let me tell you an intensely interesting sequel to your story: The girl Jessie Bain has, since the few short weeks that she left your place, captured in the matrimonial noose one of the wealthiest young men in Boston."