CHAPTER VIII.
A MOTHER'S DESPERATE SCHEME.
"What makes you think the young architect is in love with Jessie Bain,mother? I think it is an absurd idea."
"Why do you call it absurd?" returned Mrs. Varrick. "It is perfectlynatural."
Hubert turned on her in a rage so great that it fairly appalled her.
"Why did you permit this sort of thing to go on, mother?" he cried. "Itis all your fault. You are accountable for it, I say."
Mrs. Varrick rose from her seat and looked haughtily at her son, herheart beating with great, stifling throbs. In all the years of theirlives they had never before exchanged one cross word with each other,and in that moment she hated, with all the strength of her soul, thegirl who had sown discord between them, and she wished that Heaven hadstricken the girl dead ere her son had looked upon her face.
"I am sure it is nothing to you or to me whom Jessie Bain chooses tofall in love with," she answered, coldly. "You forget yourself inreproaching _me_ with it, my son," and with these words she swept fromthe room.
The door had barely closed after her ere Hubert threw himself down intothe nearest chair, covering his face with his hands.
He had loved Gerelda Northrup as few men love in a life-time, but withthe belief that she had eloped with another, growing up in his heart, hehad been able to stifle that love, root it from his heart, blossom andbranch, with an iron will, until at last he knew if he came face to facewith Gerelda she would never again have the power to thrill his heartwith the same passion.
And, sitting there, he was face to face with the truth--that his heart,in all its loneliness, had gone out to Jessie Bain in the rebound, andhe knew that life would never be the same to him if she were to preferanother to himself.
He rang the bell sharply, and in response to the summons one of theservants soon appeared.
"Send the architect--the young man whom you will find in the new westernwing of the house--to me at once. Tell him to bring his drawings withhim."
Hubert Varrick paced nervously up and down the library until the youngman entered the room.
"You sent for me, Mr. Varrick," he said, with a smile on his frank,handsome face, "and I made haste to come to you."
"I wish to inspect your drawings," he said, tersely, as he waved theyoung man to a seat.
Frank Moray laid them down upon the table. There was something inVarrick's manner that startled him, for he had always been courteous andpleasant to him before.
Varrick ran his eyes critically over the pieces of card-board, the frownon his face deepening.
"I hope the plans meet your approval, sir," said the young man, veryrespectfully. "I showed them from day to day, as I progressed, to MissJessie 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 youare. Return to your firm at once and tell them to send me another man,an older man, one with more experience--one who can spend more time athis business and less time in chattering. Your sketches are miserablydrawn!"
Frank Moray had risen to his feet, his face white as death.
"Mr. Varrick," he cried hoarsely, "let me beg of you to reconsider yourwords. Only try me again. Let me make a new set of drawings to submit toyou. It would ruin my reputation if you were to send this message to thefirm, for they have hitherto placed much confidence in my work."
"You will leave the house at once," he said, "and send a much older man,I repeat, to continue the work."
The poor fellow fairly staggered from the drawing-room. He could notimagine why, in one short hour, he had dropped from heaven to the verydepths of Hades, as it were.
Varrick breathed freely when he saw him leave the house and walk slowlydown the lilac-bordered path and out through the arched gate-way.
A little later Jessie came flying into the library. Varrick was stillseated at the table, poring over his books.
"Where is Mr. Moray--do you know?" she asked, quickly--"I want to returnhim a paper he loaned me this morning. I have been looking everywherefor him, but can not find him. There is something in the paper that youwould like to hear about too."
"Sit down on this hassock, Jessie, and read it to me," he said.
"Oh, no! You want to make fun of me," she pouted, "and see me getpuzzled over all the big words. Please read it yourself, Mr. Varrick."
"Suppose you tell me the substance of it, and that will save me readingit," he said.
"Oh, I can do that. There isn't so much to tell. It's about a fire lastnight on one of the little islands in the St. Lawrence. No doubt youhave heard of the place--Wau-Winet Island. The mysterious stone housethat was on it has been burned to the ground. The owner was away at thetime. It is supposed that everyone else on the island perished in theflames."
Hubert Varrick listened with interest, but he never dreamed how vitally,in the near future, this catastrophe would concern him.
He thought of his strange visit to that place, and that no doubt theowner was none too sorry to see it laid to ashes, as he had acknowledgedthat it had caused him much annoyance owing to the uncanny rumorsfloating about that the place was haunted by a young and beautiful womanwhose spirit would not be laid.
Then, in talking to Jessie during the next half hour he entirely forgotthe fire that had occurred on that far-away island in the St. Lawrence.
He broached the subject that the architect had gone for good, narrowlywatching Jessie's pretty face as he told her.
"Oh! I am so sorry," she declared, disappointedly, "for he was such anice young man; and in his spare moments he had promised to teach me tosketch;" and her lovely face clouded.
"Would not I do as well?" asked Hubert Varrick, gently, as his handclosed over the little white one so near his own.
The girl trembled beneath his touch. In that one moment her heart wentfrom her, and she experienced the sweet elysium of a young life justawakening to love's bewildering dream.
"Would I not make as good a teacher?" repeated Varrick, softly; and hebent his dark, handsome head, looking earnestly into the girl's flushedface.
"Perhaps," she answered, evasively; and she was very much relieved tohear some one calling her at that moment.
Mrs. Varrick heard of the proposed sketching lessons with greatdispleasure. Despite all that she had done and said, she saw these twoyoung people falling more and more in love with each other with everypassing day.
"How can I stop it? What shall I do?" she asked herself night afternight, as she paced the floor of her _boudoir_.
She fairly cursed the hour that brought lovely, innocent little JessieBain beneath that roof, and she wished she knew of some way in which toget rid of the girl for good and all.
She paced the floor until the day dawned. A terrible scheme against thelife and happiness of poor Jessie Bain had entered her brain--a schemeso dark and horrible that even she grew frightened as she contemplatedit.
Then she set her lips together, muttering hoarsely:
"I would do anything to part my son and Jessie Bain!"