""I"m going on an errand for Miss Rosamond," she answered.
""You will have a hard time getting to the street-car."
""I shall not ride," said Jessie Bain, "I shall walk!"
""Walk?" screamed the other. "Oh, Jessie Bain, don"t you do it; you will perish; and all because that Rosamond Lee was too stingy to give you your car-fare. I wish to Heaven that I had the money with me, I"d give it to you in a minute. But hold on, wait a second-- I"ll go and tell the servants about it, and I reckon that some of them can raise enough money to see you through."
"With that I slipped down to the servants" hall, to be ahead of her, and to hear what she would say, and, oh! bless my life, what a tongue-lashing they all gave you! It"s a wonder your ears didn"t burn like fire, miss.
"They said it was a beastly shame. They wished a mob would come in and give you a ducking out in the snow-drift, and see how you would like it.
They were not long in making up the money, but when they went to look for Jessie she was nowhere to be seen.
"I am almost certain that Mr. Hubert Varrick must have heard something of what was said, for one of the girls saw him standing in the door-way, listening intently. Before she could utter a word of warning he turned, with something very like a muttered threat on his lips, and strode down the corridor.
"When night fell and Jessie Bain had not returned, the anger of the servants ran high. I attempted to take your part, saying that you didn"t know how bad the day really was, when they set upon me with the fury of devils.
""Don"t attempt to shield her!" they cried, brandishing their fists in my face, some of them grazing my very nose.
""Like mistress, like maid." We hate you almost as much as we do her.
None of us shall close our eyes to-night until Jessie Bain has been found; and if she lies dead under the snow-drifts, we will form a little band that will avenge her! If Jessie Bain has died from exposure to the terrible storm, Rosamond Lee, who caused it all, shall suffer for it! If she is not here by midnight--hark you, Janet! bear this message from us to your mistress, the haughty, heartless heiress--"
But what that message was, Janet whispered in her mistress"s ear.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HUBERT VARRICK RESCUES JESSIE BAIN.
We must return to Jessie Bain.
The girl had scarcely proceeded a block through the blinding snow-drifts ere she began to grow chill and numb.
"I can never make my way to the store!" she moaned. "I-- I will perish in this awful cold!"
She grew bewildered as to the direction which had been given her. "It can not be that I am going the right way," she sobbed.
Involuntarily she turned around and took the first cross-street in view.
She had scarcely made her way half a dozen blocks when the knowledge was fully forced upon her that she must have lost her way, that each step she took was bringing her toward the suburbs of the city instead of the business portion.
Jessie stopped short. Then she fell. Hubert Varrick, on the other side of the street, saw the slender figure suddenly reel backward, whirl about, and then fall face downward in a huge snow-drift that swallowed her from sight. He plunged quickly forward, muttering to himself: "What a terrible thing it is for a weak woman to be out on such a night as this!"
And he wondered if it could be the poor sewing-girl whom he had just heard the servants discussing. They had said that Rosamond Lee had sent her to one of the stores for a few yards of velvet ribbon, without giving her her car-fare, expecting her to walk all the way in the face of such a storm.
"I declare, it is a thousand pities!" muttered Varrick.
In less time than it takes to tell it he had reached the spot where the girl lay prostrate.
Heavens! how thinly she was clad! And he shivered even from the depths of his fur-lined overcoat at the very thought of it.
Deftly as a woman might have done, he raised her, remembering that there was a drug store across the way to which he could carry her. For one instant his eyes rested on her face in the dim, uncertain, fading daylight; then an awful cry broke from his lips--a cry of horror.
"My G.o.d! is it Jessie Bain? Am I mad, or am I dreaming?"
He looked again. Surely there was no mistaking that lovely face, with the curling locks lying over her white forehead.
Do not censure him, that in that instant he forgot the whole world, only remembering that fate had given into his arms the one being in this wide earth his soul longed for. He had found Jessie Bain.
Mad with delight, he clasped her in his arms and covered her face with fervid kisses. He kissed the snowy cheeks and lips, and the cotton-gloved hands. Then the thought suddenly occurred to him that he was losing valuable time. Every moment was precious, her young life might be in jeopardy while he was keeping her out there in the bitter cold.
In a trice he tore off his warm fur coat, wrapped it about her, and hurried over to the drug store, bearing his beautiful burden as though she were but a child.
"This way!" he called out sharply to the clerk in attendance. "Attend quickly to this young lady! She has been overcome with the cold! She is dying!"
The young man behind the counter responded with alacrity, and hurriedly resorted to the restoratives usually applied in those cases, Hubert Varrick standing by, watching every action, his heart in his eyes, his face pale as death.
Every effort of the young man to revive Jessie Bain seemed futile.
"I should not wonder, sir, if this was a case of heart failure," he declared. "Generally they die instantly, though I have known them to linger for several hours. You had better summon an ambulance, sir, and have her taken to the hospital. There is one just around the corner.
Shall I ring for it, sir?"
"No; I will carry her there myself. You say it is just around the corner?"
Feeing the man generously, even though he had failed to restore the poor girl, Hubert Varrick caught her in his arms once more, again faced the terrible storm with her, and arrived at the hospital, panting at every step, for he had run the entire distance.
He summoned a doctor. To him he stated his mission, adding that he feared the girl was dying, and that he would give half his fortune if the doctor would but save her life, as it was more precious to him than the whole world beside.
The man of medicine said it was only a question of suspended animation.
If pneumonia did not set in, there was no cause for alarm.
Jessie was quickly given in charge of one of the nurses, a gentle, madonna-faced woman. She was quickly put to bed, and everything done for her that skill and experience could suggest. Hubert Varrick begged permission to sit by her couch and watch the progress of their efforts.
"Do your best," he cried, his strong voice quivering with emotion, "and I will make it worth your while. You can name your own price."
The long hours of the night pa.s.sed; morning broke cold and gray through the eastern sky, making the soft lamp-light that flooded the room look pale and wan in the dim, gray morn. The white face lying against the pillow had never stirred, nor had the blue eyes unclosed. The sun was high in the heavens when it occurred to him, for the first time, that the folks would be greatly worried about him. During the night the girl"s white lips had parted, and she murmured, faintly: "I must push on through the terrible storm, though the faintness of death seems creeping over me, for Miss Rosamond is waiting for the velvet ribbon."
Hubert Varrick"s strained ears had caught the words as he bent over her, and as he heard them his rage knew no bounds, for it was clear enough to him now that Jessie Bain, the girl he loved, had been the victim of Rosamond Lee"s cruelty. The blood fairly boiled in his veins. He felt that he could never look upon Rosamond Lee"s face again.
He was so accustomed to terrible surprises that nothing seemed to affect him of late. That Jessie Bain should have found employment under his own grandfather"s roof shocked him a little at first.
But as he began to fully realize it, he said to himself that it was the hand of fate that had led her there, that he might find her. It was not until the sun had climbed the horizon, had crossed it, and was sinking down on the other side, that consciousness came back to Jessie Bain.
With the first fluttering of the white eyelids, the doctor in attendance motioned Hubert Varrick away.
"She must not see you," he said. "It might give her a set-back. Just now we can not be too careful of her."
This was a great disappointment to Varrick, but he tried to bear it patiently.