Kidnapped at the Altar Part 33

How he made his way out of the place, he never afterward remembered.

There was but one other course to pursue, and that was, to go to New York by the first outgoing train, and try to find her.

Hailing a pa.s.sing cab, he sprang into it, remembering just in time that the New York express left the depot at seven o'clock. If the man drove sharp he might make it, but it would be as much as he could do.

He gave the man a double fare, who, whipping up his horses, fairly whirled down the snow-packed road in the direction of the depot.

"I am afraid that I can not make the train, sir," called the driver, hoa.r.s.ely, as Hubert Varrick leaned out of the window, crying excitedly that he would quadruple his fare if he would make the horses go faster.

Again he plied his whip to the flanks of the horses, but they could not increase their speed, for they were doing their very best at that moment.

Nearer and nearer sounded the shrieking whistle of the far-off train.

They reached the depot just as the train swept round the bend of the road.

"Thank G.o.d, I am in time!" cried Hubert Varrick, as he rushed along the platform. "If I had missed this train, I should have had to wait until to-morrow morning. I shall have little enough time to purchase my ticket. I--"

The rest of the sentence was never uttered. He stopped short. Standing on the platform, watching with wistful eyes the incoming train, was Jessie Bain!

A great cry broke from his lips. In an instant he was standing beside her, her hands in his, crying excitedly:

"Oh! Jessie, Jessie. Thank Heaven I am in time!"

"Mr. Varrick!" she gasped, faintly. At that instant the train stopped at the station.

"You must not go on board!" he cried, excitedly. "Jessie, you must listen to what I have to say to you," he commanded. "You must not go to New York."

There was a sternness in his voice that held her spell-bound for an instant.

"Come into the waiting-room," he said. "I must speak with you."

Drawing her hand within his arm, he fairly compelled her to obey him; and as they crossed the threshold the train thundered on again.

The room was crowded. This certainly was not the time or place to utter the burning words that were on his lips. An idea occurred to him. He would get a coach, drive about the city, through the park, and as they rode, he could talk with her entirely free from interruption.

Hailing a coach that stood by the curbstone, he proceeded to a.s.sist his companion into it. She was too overcome by emotion to exert any will of her own.

He took his seat by her side, and a moment later they were bowling slowly down the wide avenue through which he had driven so furiously but a little while before.

"Now, Jessie," he began, tremulously; "listen to me, I pray you. I have traveled all the way back to Boston for your dear sake, to see you, to hold your hands, to speak with you, and to tell you I do not consider the little tear-blotted note you sent me, a fitting answer to my letter.

I can not take 'no,' for an answer, Jessie, dear. You could not mean it.

When I read what you wrote me, in answer to my burning words of love, it nearly unmanned me. You said, in that little note, that you did care for me; you acknowledged it. Now, I ask you, why, if this be true, would you doom me, as well as yourself, to a life of misery. You say there is a mystery, deep and fathomless, which separates us from each other for all time to come? This I must refuse to believe. You say it is something which my mother knows? Will you confess to me, Jessie, my darling, my precious one, just what you mean? Remember that the happiness of two lives hangs upon your answer."

The girl was crying as though her heart would break, her lovely face buried in her hands.

He sat by her side very gravely, waiting until the storm of tears should have subsided.

He well knew that it was better that such grief, which seemed to rend her very soul, should waste itself in tears. At length, when her sobs grew fainter and she became calmer, he ventured to speak once more.

"I beg you to tell me, Jessie," he went on, "just what it is that holds our two lives asunder."

He longed with all his soul to take her in his arms, pillow the golden head on his breast, and let her weep her grief out there. But he must not; he must control the longing that was eating his heart away.

"Be candid with me, Jessie," he said, his voice trembling and husky. "Do not conceal anything from me. The hour has come when nothing but frankness will answer, and I must know all, from beginning to end. What is it, I ask again, that my mother knows which you alluded to in your note, saying that it had the power to part us? Dear little Jessie, sweet one, confide in me! I repeat, keep nothing from me."

Through the tears which lay trembling on her long lashes, Jessie raised her lovely blue eyes and looked at him, her lips quivering piteously.

For an instant she could not speak, so great was her emotion; then by a mighty effort she controlled herself, and answered in a broken voice:

"I-- I made a solemn pledge to your mother, the day I left your house, that I would never cross your path again, that I-- I should do my best to avoid you and steal quietly away out of your life. I-- I signed the paper and left it in your mother's hands. That, and that alone, satisfied her. Then I went away out of your life, though it almost broke my heart to do so. I-- I have kept my promise to her. I meant to go away and to never look upon your face, even though I knew that Heaven had answered my prayer and given me your love--which I prize more than life itself--when everything else in this world was taken from me."

As Varrick listened, a terrible whiteness had overspread his face.

"Answer me this, Jessie," he asked; in the greatest agitation: "Why did you sign the other paper which you left with my mother that day? Answer me, Jessie--you must!"

"I signed no other paper than that which contained the promise I have just spoken to you about," the girl returned earnestly, puzzled as to what he could mean.

For answer, he drew forth the note which he had taken from his mother's writing-desk and placed in his breast pocket, and put it in Jessie's hand.

"This note has been written by my mother," he said, "and this is your signature, which I would know anywhere in the world, my darling," he went on, huskily. "Oh, my love, my love! explain it to me!"

She had taken the paper from his hands, and run her eyes rapidly over the written words. They seemed to stand out in letters of fire. Her brain whirled around; her very senses seemed leaving her.

"Oh, Hubert! Hubert! listen to me!" she cried, forgetful of her surroundings, as she flung herself on her knees at his feet. "This is not the paper I signed, although the signature is so startlingly like my own that I am bewildered. I signed a paper which said that I would never cross your path again; but not this one--oh, not this one! I-- I never saw this paper before. Oh, Hubert-- Mr. Varrick-- I plead with you not to believe that I could ever have signed a paper acknowledging that I took your mother's diamond bracelet! I have never taken anything which did not belong to me in all my life. I would have died first--starved on the street!"

Words can not describe what the thoughts were that coursed through Hubert Varrick's brain as he slowly raised her.

"Tell me, Jessie," he cried, "did you read over the paper which you signed?"

"No," she sobbed; "I did not read it. Your mother wrote it, telling me what was in it--that I was never to cross your path again, because she wished it so, and I signed it without reading it. Indeed, I could not have read a line to have saved my life, my eyes were so blinded with tears, just as they are now."

A grayish pallor spread over his face; a startling revelation had come to him: his _mother_ had written the terrible doc.u.ment, every line of which she knew to be false, relying upon the girl's agitation not to discover its contents ere she signed it!

Yes, that was the solution of the mystery; he saw through the whole contemptible affair.

Only his mother's illness prevented him from stopping at the first telegraph office and sending a dispatch to her to let her know that he had discovered all.

"You do not believe it--you will not believe that I took the bracelet?"

Jessie was sobbing out. "Speak to me, oh, I implore you, and tell me that you believe me innocent!"

He turned suddenly and took her in his arms.

"Believe in your innocence, my darling?" he answered, suddenly. "Yes, before Heaven I do! You are innocent--innocent as a little child. I intend to take you directly to my mother, and this mystery shall then be unraveled."

Despite the girl's protestations, he insisted that it must be so, and the first outgoing train bore them on their way back to Boston.

It so happened that he found a lady acquaintance on board, an old friend of his mother, who willingly took charge of Jessie on the journey.

"Keep up a brave heart, little Jessie," whispered Hubert, as he bid the ladies good-night. "All will come out well. Nothing on earth shall take you from me again."