RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL.
When the train reached Boston, Varrick took a cab at once for his home,
Jessie and his mother's friend accompanying him. They had barely reached
the entrance gate, ere they saw, through the dense foliage of trees that
surrounded the old mansion, that lights were moving quickly in the east
wing of the house that was occupied by his mother.
His sharp ring had scarcely died away when the footman came hurriedly to
the door.
"Now that I have seen you safely home, with Miss Bain beneath your
mother's roof, I shall have to hurry on," declared his mother's friend.
"I know your mother will forgive me, Hubert, for not stopping a few
days, or at least a few hours, when you explain to her that it is a
necessity for me to resume my journey. You must see me back to the
carriage."
Persuasion was of no avail. Leaving Jessie in the vestibule for a few
moments, Hubert complied with her request. When he returned a moment
later, he found her in earnest conversation with the servant.
"Oh, Mr. Varrick-- Hubert!" Jessie cried excitedly. "You must go to your
mother at once. I hear she is very, very ill, and that all of the
servants, for some reason, have fled from the house. Even the nurse, for
some reason, refused to remain. Oh, Mr. Varrick!" she repeated, eagerly,
"let me go to her bedside and nurse her. She is out of her head, and
will never know."
Tears rushed to Varrick's eyes.
"You are an angel, Jessie!" he cried, kissing her hand warmly. "It shall
be as you wish. Follow me!"
They entered noiselessly. Mrs. Varrick was tossing restlessly to and fro
on a bed of pain. The family doctor was bending over her, with a look of
alarm in his face. Hubert stole softly to the bedside, Jessie following.
All in an instant, before the doctor could spring forward to prevent
them, both had suddenly bent down and kissed the sufferer repeatedly.
"Great God!" gasped the doctor, "the mischief has been done! I did not
have an instant's time to warn you. Your mother is alarmingly ill with
that dread disease, small-pox! I am forced to say to you that after what
has occurred--your contact with my patient, I shall be obliged to
quarantine you both."
"Great God!" Hubert cried, turning pale as death as he looked at
Jessie.
"Do not fear for me, Mr. Varrick," she said, "I am not afraid."
"For myself I do not care, for I passed through such a siege when I was
a child, and came out of it unscathed. But you, Jessie? Oh, it must not
be--it shall not be--that you, too, must suffer this dread contagion!"
"It is too late now for useless reflection. It would be better to face
the consequences than seek to avoid them. If it is destined that either
one of you should succumb to this disease, you could not avoid it,
believe me, though you flew to the other end of the world. Take it very
calmly, and hope for the best. Forget your danger, now that you are face
to face with it, and let us do our utmost to relieve my suffering
patient."
"He is right," said Jessie.
In this Hubert Varrick was forced to concur.
"Heaven bless you for your kindness!" he murmured.
The touch of those cool, soft hands on Mrs. Varrick's burning brow had a
most marvelous effect in soothing her. During the fortnight that
followed she would have no one else by her bedside but Jessie; she would
take medicine from no one else. She called for her incessantly while she
was out of her sight.
"If she recovers, it will all be due to you, Miss Bain," the doctor said
one day.
There came a day when the ravages of the terrible disease had worn
themselves out, and Mrs. Varrick opened her eyes to consciousness. Her
life had been spared; but, ah! never again in this world would any one
look with anything save horror upon her. Her son dreaded the hour when
she should look in the mirror and see the poor scarred face reflected
there.
When she realized that she owed her very life to the girl who had
watched over her so ceaselessly and that that girl was Jessie Bain, her
emotion was great. She buried her poor face in her hands, and they heard
her murmur brokenly:
"God is surely heaping coals of fire upon my head."
On the very day that she was able to leave her couch for the first time,
and to lean on that strong brave young arm that helped her into the
sunny drawing-room, Jessie herself was stricken down.
In those days that had dragged their slow flight by, Mrs. Varrick had
experienced a great change of heart. She had learned to love Jessie a
thousand times more than she ever hated her. And now when this calamity
came upon the girl, her grief knew no bounds.
What if the girl should die, and Hubert should still believe her guilty
of the theft of the diamonds. God would never forgive her for her sin.
There was but one way to atone for it, and that was to make a full
confession.
It was the hardest task of her life when her son, whom she had sent for,
stood before her. When she attempted to utter the words, to lead to the
subject uppermost in her mind, her heart grew faint, her lips faltered.
"Come and sit beside me, Hubert; I have something to tell you," she
said.
He did as she requested, attempting to take her thin, white hands down
from her poor disfigured face.
"Promise, beforehand, that you will not hate me."
"I could not hate you, mother," he said, gently.
Burying her face still deeper in the folds of her handkerchief, while
her form swayed to and fro, she told him all in broken words. At length
she had finished, and a silence like death fell between them. Raising
her head slowly from the folds of her handkerchief, she cast her eyes
fearfully in his direction. To her intense amazement, she saw him
leaning back comfortably in his seat.
"Hubert!" she gasped, "are you not bitterly angry with me? Speak!"
"I was very angry, I confess, mother, when this was first known to me;
but I have had time since to think the matter over calmly. You acted
under the pressure of intense excitement, I concluded, and pride, which
was always your besetting sin, mother; and that gained the ascendency
over you to the extent that you would rather have seen Jessie in a
prison cell, though she was innocent, than see her my wife!"
"You knew it before I told you?" she exclaimed. "But how did you find
out?"
"That must be _my_ secret, for the time being, mother," he returned. "Be
thankful that no harm came from your nefarious scheme. If Jessie had
been thrown into a prison cell and persecuted unjustly, I admit that I
should never have forgiven you while life lasted. Now, every thought is
swallowed up in the fear that her illness may terminate as yours did,
mother. But this I say to you: if she were the most-scarred creature on
the face of the earth, I should still love her and wish to marry her."
"I should not oppose it, my son," said his mother.
The terrible calamity which Mrs. Varrick had so long dreaded had not
happened--her son had not turned against her.
We will pass over the fortnight that followed. Heaven had been merciful.
Despite the fact that she had nursed Mrs. Varrick day and night, she
herself had suffered but a slight attack of the dread contagion, and
there were tears in both Hubert's and his mother's eyes when the doctor
informed them that there would be no trace of the dread disease on the
girl's fair face.
The road back to health and strength was but a short one, for Jessie had
youth to help her in the great struggle. When she found that Mrs.
Varrick had become reconciled to her, and had even consented to her
marriage with her idolized son, and was laying plans for it, her joy
knew no bounds.
It was the happiest household ever seen that gathered around Jessie Bain
when she was able to sit up. All the old servants were so glad to see
Jessie her bright, merry self once more, and to have their young master
Hubert and pretty Jessie reunited. They talked of their coming wedding
as the greatest event that would ever take place there, and they made
the greatest preparations for the coming marriage.
Again cards were sent out, and the first person who received one was
Rosamond Lee.
Her amazement and rage knew no bounds. She had never heard from Jessie
Bain since the hour she was sent out in that terrible storm. Nor had she
ever seen Hubert Varrick since, nor heard from him. Somehow it had run
in her mind that he might have met the girl, and she had told him all
that had happened; and she decided that, under existing circumstances,
she had better remain away from the wedding.
"There is no use in my remaining in this house, with this fussy old man
and woman," she said flinging down the invitation, which she had been
reading aloud to her maid. "I only came to this lonely place with the
hope of winning handsome Hubert Varrick, and I have fooled away my time
here all in vain, it seems. We had better get away at once."
Despite the protestations of old Mr. and Mrs. Bassett, Rosamond Lee and
her maid left the house that very day.
The servants of the place were indeed glad to get rid of them; and as
they were being driven away in the Bassett carriage, the maid, looking
back by chance, saw every one of them standing at an upper window,
making wild grimaces at them, which Rosamond Lee's maid venomously
returned, saying to herself that she should never see them again.
Rosamond Lee's home was in New York City, and it was not until she got
on the train bound for the metropolis that she gave full vent to her
feelings and railed bitterly against the unkindness of fate in giving a
grand man like Hubert Varrick to such a little nobody as that miserable,
white-faced Jessie Bain.
"I hope she will never be happy with him!" she added, in a burst of
bitterness.
When they reached the city, they drove directly to the boarding-house
where they were accustomed to stop. As strange fate would have it, it
was the very boarding-house beneath whose roof Jessie Bain and Margaret
had found shelter when Jessie had come to New York in search of work.
The landlady was very glad to welcome back Miss Rosamond Lee and her
maid.
"You came back quite unexpectedly, Miss Lee," said the landlady. "We can
get your room ready, however, without delay. There is a young girl in
the little hall bedroom that your maid has always had. Still, as she
doesn't pay anything, she can be moved. By the way, I want you to take
notice of her when you see her. She's as pretty as a picture but she's
not quite right in her head.
"She was brought here by a young girl who took pity on her, and while
the young girl was off securing work, she suddenly became so
unmanageable that we thought the best thing to do was to send her to an
asylum. But on her way there she made her escape from the vehicle. The
driver never missed her until he had reached his destination.
"Search was made for her, and for many weeks we attempted to trace her,
but it was all of no avail. Only last night, by the merest chance, we
came face to face with her at a flower-stand, where they had taken her
for her pretty face, to make sales for them. I brought her home at once,
for there had been a good reward offered to any one who would find her.
"Here another difficulty presented itself.
"The young girl who caused the reward to be offered is now missing--at
least, I can not find her."
"Why don't you insert a 'personal' in the paper?" drawled Rosamond Lee.
"That would be a capital idea. Gracious! I wonder that I did not think
of it before," said the landlady. "But, dear me! I'm not a good hand at
composing anything of that kind for the paper."
"I'll write it out for you, if you like," said Rosamond, indolently.
The landlady took her at her word.
"The name of the young girl whom I wish to find is Jessie Bain," she
began.
A great cry broke from Rosamond Lee's lips, and her face grew ashen.
"Did I hear you say Jessie Bain?" she asked.
"Yes; that was the name," returned the landlady, wonderingly. "Do you
know her?"
"Yes-- I don't know. Describe her. It must be one and the same person,"
she added under her breath.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised," continued the woman, "for she went to
Albany, the very place you have just come from."
"It's the same one," cried Rosamond Lee. "Tell me the story of this
demented girl over again in all its details. I was not paying attention
before. I did not half listen to all you said."
The landlady went over the story a second time for Rosamond's benefit.
Miss Lee meanwhile paced the room excitedly up and down.
"I'll tell you what I think," she cried excitedly. "Those two girls are
surely adventuresses of the worst type. You say at first that she called
the demented girl her sister, and then afterward admitted that she was
not. You see, there was something wrong from the start. Now let me tell
you an intensely interesting sequel to your story: The girl Jessie Bain
has, since the few short weeks that she left your place, captured in the
matrimonial noose one of the wealthiest young men in Boston."
"Well, well what a marvelous story!" declared the landlady; and her
opinion of Jessie Bain went up forthwith instead of being lowered, as
Rosamond calculated it would be.
"The idea of an adventuress daring to attempt to capture Hubert
Varrick!" the girl cried. "That is the point I want you to see. I have a
great plan," continued Rosamond. "I will write to Hubert Varrick at
once, that he may save himself from the snare which is being laid for
his unwary feet by that cunning creature, or I will go to his mother and
tell her all about it. I will make it a point to have a talk with this
Margaret Moore at once. Do send her in to me."
The landlady could not very well refuse the request so eagerly made.
When Margaret Moore came into the room, a few minutes later, and
Rosamond's eyes fell upon her, she gave a sudden start, mentally
ejaculating:
"Great goodness! where have I seen that girl before? Her face is
certainly familiar!"