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Updated: June 16, 2025
Varrick Hubert's mother has always said she would give anything to find a person willing to come to her home who could do just such fancy-work, and decorate her boudoir. Now, I mean to go there in disguise, show her a sample of my work, and say that I gave many lessons to Gerelda Northrup, and she will be only too glad to have me come to her home at any price.
It recalls something out of my past life," she muttered. With a low cry he bent forward. "Then it is you, Gerelda Mrs. Varrick?" Rosamond Lee, whose face had grown from red to white, sprung excitedly to her feet. "What mystery is this?" she cried. "What do you mean by calling this girl Mrs. Varrick? There is a friend of mine a Mr. Hubert Varrick who is soon to be married to a Jessie Bain.
The house was wrapped in darkness when she woke to consciousness. Gerelda struggled to her feet, muttering to herself that it was surely death that was stealing slowly but surely over her. Slowly, from over the distant hills, she heard some church-clock ring out the hour. "Eleven!" she counted, in measured strokes. As the sound died away, Gerelda crept round the house to the servants' entrance.
Then Gerelda heard him say, "I have in my pocket the wedding-gift with which I am to present you. It is not so very costly, but you will appreciate it, I hope," disclosing as he spoke a ruby velvet case, the spring of which he touched lightly, and the lid flew back, revealing a magnificent diamond necklace and a pendant star. "Oh, Hubert, you can not mean that that is for me!" cried Jessie.
What a capital idea it would be!" he cried, laughing aloud, grimly. "If I could manage to abduct Hubert Varrick's intended bride and hold her for a ransom? I made a success of it with Gerelda Northrup when she stood at the very altar with him; and what a man does once he can do again. The first time it was done for love's sake; now it would be a question of money with me.
I understand this point thoroughly. You will have to make up your mind to marry him without love." "It takes two to make a contract to marry," sobbed Gerelda. "I am willing, but he does not seem to be." "It is plainly evident that I shall have to take the matter in hand," said Mrs. Northrup. "When is he coming again?" "He didn't say," returned Gerelda, faintly.
I couldn't help it, I got so tired of hooking young ones' dresses and hearing their prayers." With an assumption of dignity, Hubert Varrick unwound the girl's arms from about his neck. But somehow they had sent a strange thrill through his whole being, just such a thrill as he had experienced during the hour in which he had asked Gerelda to be his wife, and she had answered in the affirmative.
Again she spoke, and this time the accents were more startlingly familiar than ever. Frazier sprang to his feet, walked down to the end of the car, then turned and slowly retraced his steps, watching the girl intently the while. "I could almost swear that I am getting the tremens again, or that my eyes deceive me," he muttered. "If ever I saw Gerelda Northrup in the flesh, that is she!"
Suddenly she sprang back with a wild cry that fairly froze the blood in Varrick's veins. "What has frightened you, Gerelda?" he asked, gravely; and the look she turned on him he never forgot, there was something so terrible in the gaze of those dark eyes.
Hubert!" and in that instant Gerelda was in his arms. Insensibly his arms closed around her; but there was no warmth in the embrace. She held up her lovely face to be kissed, and he bent his handsome head and gave her the caress she coveted; but for him was gone all the old rapture that a kiss from those flower-like lips would have brought.
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