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"I hope the plans meet your approval, sir," said the young man, very respectfully. "I showed them from day to day, as I progressed, to Miss Jessie Bain, and she seemed very much interested in them." Those words were fatal to the young man's cause. With an angry gesture, Varrick threw the drawings down upon the table. "Your plans do not please me at all," he returned. "Stop right where you are.
Varrick's mercy, who had promised not to prosecute her providing she left the country, which she was only too willing to do. And to this terrible document Jessie Bain signed her name clearly and plainly. With hurried step Mrs. Varrick crossed the room and locked the precious document in a secret drawer of her escritoire; then she remembered that the detective was awaiting her.
"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.
"Lord bless you, sir!" he answered, "there's scarcely a single man for miles around that isn't in love with Jessie Bain; but she will have none of them. "There's a little story about Jessie Bain. I'll tell it to you, since you admire the girl." But the story was not destined to become known to Varrick, for his companion was called away at that moment.
"Never, with my consent, will he ever speak to you again! Do you hear me? I would curse him if he did. "And it would not stop at that," went on Mrs. Varrick. "I would cut him off without a dollar, and turn him into the streets a beggar! That would soon bring him to his senses. Ay, I would do all that and more, if he were even to speak to you again.
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.
No wonder the beauty had found it difficult to choose between handsome Hubert Varrick and the dashing captain. Varrick was a millionaire, and Captain Frazier could easily write out his check for an equal amount.
As he stood gazing at it, the clock in some adjacent steeple slowly struck the midnight hour. He wondered if Jessie was there. How he felt like telling some one his troubles! Early the next morning Varrick was at the scene of the disaster, though he was scarcely fit to leave his bed at the village hostelry. Most of the bodies had been recovered or accounted for, save that of Gerelda.
"Perhaps he is an acquaintance of my son; his friends are so numerous that it is very hard for me to keep track of them," added Mrs. Varrick, asking: "Why did he not come into the house with you?" "He declined, stating no reason," was the reply.
Varrick would have liked Jessie Bain, she was so bright, so merry, so artless. She lost no opportunity in impressing upon Jessie's mind, when she was alone with the girl, that Hubert would never marry, eagerly noticing what effect these words would have upon the girl. "Wouldn't that be a pity, Mrs. Varrick?" she had answered once. "It would be so cruel for him to stay single always."
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