And so the preparations for the wedding, for a second time, were begun.
Again the guests were bidden, and the event was to take place in exactly six weeks from that day.
CHAPTER XVII.
LOVE IS BITTER AND THE WHOLE WORLD GOES WRONG WHEN TWO LOVERS PART IN ANGER FOREVER.
We must return to our beautiful heroine, little Jessie Bain.
When she turned her face from the Varrick mansion toward the cold and desolate world, the girl"s very heart seemed to stop still in her bosom.
Jessie Bain knew little of traveling--she had not the least idea how to get to her uncle"s, although she had made that trip once before. She walked one street after the other in the vain hope of finding the depot.
At last, fairly exhausted, she found herself just outside the entrance to Central Park.
Jessie entered the park, and sunk down on the nearest seat.
Among those sauntering past in the crowd was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, who stopped abruptly as his bold black eyes fell upon the lovely young face.
"Heavens! what a beauty!" he muttered, stopping short, under the pretense of lighting a cigarette, and watching her covertly from under his dark brows.
Seating himself unconcernedly on the further end of the bench, the stranger continued to watch Jessie, who had not even the slightest intimation of his presence.
He waited until the crowd thinned out, until only an occasional straggler pa.s.sed by; then he edged nearer the pretty little creature.
"Ahem!" he began, with a slight cough. After several ineffectual attempts to attract her attention in this way, the stranger spoke to her.
"A lovely day, isn"t it?" he remarked.
"Are you speaking to me, sir?" asked Jessie Bain, in great displeasure.
"I am indeed so bold," he answered. "May I hope that you are not offended with me for so doing, for I have a fancy to know such a pretty young girl as yourself."
"I am offended!" cried Jessie Bain, indignantly. "I always supposed before this that people could sit down in a public park without being molested; but it seems not; so I shall move on!"
"So young, so beautiful, but so unkind," murmured the stranger, in a melo-dramatic voice.
"I can not think that we are strangers. I must have seen you somewhere, believe me," he went on, rising suddenly and walking close by her side as she started down the path.
Jessie was now thoroughly frightened. She uttered a little, shrill cry.
"What are you doing that for?" hissed the man, clutching her arm. "You will have the police after us. Walk along quietly beside me, you little fool; I have something to say to you."
Terrified, Jessie only cried the louder and shriller, wrenching her arm free from the stranger"s grasp.
At that instant a young man, who had happened along, and who had heard the cry, sprang with alacrity to the young girl"s rescue.
"What is the matter?" he cried. "Is this fellow annoying you?"
Jessie knew the voice at once, and sprang forward. She had recognized the voice of the young architect.
"Oh, save me--save me!" she cried.
Even before she had time to utter a word the young man had recognized Jessie Bain; and that very instant the man who had dared thus annoy her was measuring his full length on the gra.s.s, sent there by the young architect"s vigorous arm.
"I will have your life for this!" yelled the fellow, as he picked himself up, but taking good care to keep well out of the reach of the young girl"s defender.
"What in the world are you doing in the park, and so far away from home, Miss Jessie?" Moray, the young architect, asked.
Her lips quivered and her eyes filled with sudden tears.
"Varrick Place isn"t home to me any longer, Mr. Moray," she sobbed. "I have just left it to-day--left it forever. I wish I had never seen the place. It has caused me no end of sorrow."
"I do not wish to pry into any of your affairs," he said, gently, as he took her hand and walked slowly down the path with her; "but if you will confide in me and tell me why you left, I might be able to help you."
Little by little he drew from the girl the whole terrible story, until she had told him all.
Frank Moray"s indignation knew no bounds. He could hardly restrain himself from e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of anger.
"Of course, if you have friends, it would ill become me to persuade you not to go to them; but if you ask my advice, I would say: remain here for a little while and look about you. Come home with me. I have a dear old mother who will receive you with open arms. My cousin Annabel, too, will be glad to welcome you. Come home and talk to mother and let her advise you what to do. Will you come with me, Miss Jessie?"
The girl was only too glad to a.s.sent.
When Jessie had finished her story, the impulse was strong within the young architect"s breast to ask the girl to marry him, then and there.
He had never ceased caring for her from the first moment he had seen her pretty face. But he told himself that it would seem too much like taking an unfair advantage to say anything of love or marriage to her now.
Mrs. Moray received the stranger with motherly kindness.
"I have heard my son speak of you so often that I feel as though I were well acquainted with you," she said, untying the girl"s bonnet and removing her mantle.
"Come here, Annabel, my dear," she said, turning to a young girl who sat in a little low rocker by the sewing machine, "and welcome Miss Bain."
A slim, slight girl, in a jaunty blue cloth dress edged with white, rose and came curiously forward, extending a little brown hand to Jessie.
"I am very glad to see you, Miss Bain," she said; "for Frank has talked of you so much."
"Won"t you please call me Jessie?" returned the other. "No one has ever called me Miss Bain before."
"Nothing would please me better," returned Annabel.
They spent a very pleasant evening, and then Annabel took Jessie off to her room with her for the night.
Long after the two girls had retired Mrs. Moray and her son sat talking the matter over, and it was not long before Mrs. Moray discovered that her boy was deeply in love with pretty Jessie Bain.
Of course, like himself, she felt perfectly sure that the girl was entirely innocent of what she had been accused of by Mrs. Varrick.