Kidnapped at the Altar: or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain

"Why, what in the world do you mean, mother?" cried Hubert Varrick. "What are you talking about?"

"Why, my dear son, have you been blind to what has been going on for the last fortnight?" she returned, with seeming carelessness. "Haven't you noticed that the young architect who is drawing the plans for the new western wing of our house is in love with your protégée?"

She never forgot the expression of her son's face; it was livid and white as death. This betrayed his secret. He loved Jessie Bain himself!

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 perfectly natural."

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. "It is all your fault. You are accountable for it, I say."

Mrs. Varrick rose from her seat and looked haughtily at her son, her heart beating with great, stifling throbs. In all the years of their lives they had never before exchanged one cross word with each other, and in that moment she hated, with all the strength of her soul, the girl who had sown discord between them, and she wished that Heaven had stricken 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 to fall in love with," she answered, coldly. "You forget yourself in reproaching me with it, my son," and with these words she swept from the room.

The door had barely closed after her ere Hubert threw himself down into the nearest chair, covering his face with his hands.

He had loved Gerelda Northrup as few men love in a life-time, but with the belief that she had eloped with another, growing up in his heart, he had been able to stifle that love, root it from his heart, blossom and branch, with an iron will, until at last he knew if he came face to face with Gerelda she would never again have the power to thrill his heart with 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, and he knew that life would never be the same to him if she were to prefer another to himself.

He rang the bell sharply, and in response to the summons one of the servants soon appeared.

"Send the architect – the young man whom you will find in the new western wing of the house – to me at once. Tell him to bring his drawings with him."

Hubert Varrick paced nervously up and down the library until the young man 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 the young man to a seat.

Frank Moray laid them down upon the table. There was something in Varrick's manner that startled him, for he had always been courteous and pleasant to him before.

Varrick ran his eyes critically over the pieces of card-board, the frown on his face deepening.

"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. 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 at his business and less time in chattering. Your sketches are miserably drawn!"

Frank Moray had risen to his feet, his face white as death.

"Mr. Varrick," he cried hoarsely, "let me beg of you to reconsider your words. Only try me again. Let me make a new set of drawings to submit to you. It would ruin my reputation if you were to send this message to the firm, 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 not imagine why, in one short hour, he had dropped from heaven to the very depths of Hades, as it were.

Varrick breathed freely when he saw him leave the house and walk slowly down the lilac-bordered path and out through the arched gate-way.

A little later Jessie came flying into the library. Varrick was still seated at the table, poring over his books.

"Where is Mr. Moray – do you know?" she asked, quickly – "I want to return him a paper he loaned me this morning. I have been looking everywhere for him, but can not find him. There is something in the paper that you would 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 get puzzled over all the big words. Please read it yourself, Mr. Varrick."

"Suppose you tell me the substance of it, and that will save me reading it," he said.

"Oh, I can do that. There isn't so much to tell. It's about a fire last night on one of the little islands in the St. Lawrence. No doubt you have heard of the place – Wau-Winet Island. The mysterious stone house that was on it has been burned to the ground. The owner was away at the time. It is supposed that everyone else on the island perished in the flames."

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 the owner was none too sorry to see it laid to ashes, as he had acknowledged that it had caused him much annoyance owing to the uncanny rumors floating about that the place was haunted by a young and beautiful woman whose spirit would not be laid.

Then, in talking to Jessie during the next half hour he entirely forgot the fire that had occurred on that far-away island in the St. Lawrence.

He broached the subject that the architect had gone for good, narrowly watching Jessie's pretty face as he told her.

"Oh! I am so sorry," she declared, disappointedly, "for he was such a nice young man; and in his spare moments he had promised to teach me to sketch;" and her lovely face clouded.

"Would not I do as well?" asked Hubert Varrick, gently, as his hand closed over the little white one so near his own.

The girl trembled beneath his touch. In that one moment her heart went from her, and she experienced the sweet elysium of a young life just awakening to love's bewildering dream.

"Would I not make as good a teacher?" repeated Varrick, softly; and he bent his dark, handsome head, looking earnestly into the girl's flushed face.

"Perhaps," she answered, evasively; and she was very much relieved to hear some one calling her at that moment.

Mrs. Varrick heard of the proposed sketching lessons with great displeasure. Despite all that she had done and said, she saw these two young people falling more and more in love with each other with every passing day.

"How can I stop it? What shall I do?" she asked herself night after night, as she paced the floor of her boudoir.

She fairly cursed the hour that brought lovely, innocent little Jessie Bain beneath that roof, and she wished she knew of some way in which to get rid of the girl for good and all.

She paced the floor until the day dawned. A terrible scheme against the life and happiness of poor Jessie Bain had entered her brain – a scheme so dark and horrible that even she grew frightened as she contemplated it.

Then she set her lips together, muttering hoarsely:

"I would do anything to part my son and Jessie Bain!"