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Updated: May 16, 2025
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.
In that instant the thought of Jessie Bain came to him sweet little Jessie, whose love for him he had read in her every glance, and to whom he had given all his heart with a deeper, stronger love than he had ever given to Gerelda, even in those old days. How he longed to break from the terrible nightmare which seemed to fetter him!
He watched the line of shore until it disappeared from his sight, and a heavy sigh throbbed on his lips as his thoughts dwelt sadly on Gerelda, his fair young bride, who lay sleeping on the hill-side just where the setting sun glinted the marble shaft over her grave with a touch of pale gold.
We must return to Captain Frazier, whom we left standing at the gate when he had parted from the minister, who had gone into the Varrick mansion to make arrangements for the wedding which was to take place on the morrow. "Gerelda must have made herself known to them by this time, and a lively scene is probably ensuing," he muttered.
"From the very beginning, Varrick has always had the best of me," he muttered. "I never loved but one thing in all my life," he cried, hoarsely; "and that was Gerelda Northrup, and he won her from me. From that moment on I have cursed him with all the passionate hatred of my nature.
Gerelda swallowed a roll and drank the tea and hastened to the morning-room. Here Gerelda found not only Mrs. Varrick, but every man and woman who lived beneath the roof of the Varrick mansion. For a moment Gerelda hesitated. Had some one discovered that she was in disguise, and informed Mrs. Varrick? She trembled violently from head to foot. Mrs. Varrick broke in upon her confused thoughts.
This had gone broadcast throughout the city, he told himself, and now what could he do but marry Gerelda; otherwise it would subject her to the severest criticism, and himself to scorn. A woman's good name was at stake. Was he not in honor bound to shield her? He would have been startled had he but known that this newspaper article was the work of Mrs. Northrup.
"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.
She had said when she recovered consciousness and found herself on the island, and the boatman gone: "I will never utter another word from this hour until I am set free again. You are beneath contempt, Captain Frazier, to kidnap a young girl at the altar." He never forgot how she looked at him in the clear moonlight as he turned to her, crying out passionately: "It is your own fault, Gerelda.
If I find that Hubert Varrick has been so false to me, it will surely kill me. I am going there to see for myself." "You do not seem to realize, my dear," said Nurse Henderson, "that the people say you eloped with his rival, and that he believes them." "He should have had more confidence in me, no matter what the world says!" cried Gerelda, with flashing eyes. "He should have searched for me.
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