"I shall be only too happy to render you any a.s.sistance in my power," he murmured. "I used to know the family at Varrick mansion a few years ago," he went on. "I am not so well acquainted, however, with the present heir. Pardon me, but may I ask if the event to which you allude, that is to take place to-morrow, is a marriage ceremony?"
The minister bowed gravely.
"Between young Mr. Varrick and a Miss Bain?"
Again the reverend gentleman inclined his head in the affirmative, remarking that the bride-to-be was as sweet and gracious as she was beautiful.
Captain Frazier looked narrowly at his companion for an instant, then he asked, quickly:
"Again I ask your pardon for the questions I wish to put to you, but are you not the same minister who was sent to perform the marriage ceremony up at the Thousand Islands? and, again, the same minister who, later on, united Mr. Varrick in marriage to the beautiful Gerelda Northrup?"
The reverend gentleman bowed, wondering vaguely why the stranger should catechise him after this fashion.
"You seem well acquainted with the family history, my friend," he remarked, slowly.
"Yes," Frazier answered, shortly, adding, in a low, smooth voice: "It was a fatal accident which robbed Hubert Varrick, some time since, of the bride whom he had just wedded. Her death has never been clearly proven, has it?"
"Oh, yes, it has," returned the minister. "Her body was among the unfortunates who were afterward recovered."
"Ah!" said Frazier, _sotto voice_, adding: "It is so very strange, my good sir, that after this thrilling experience, Varrick should take it upon himself to secure another wife."
The good minister looked at him, quite embarra.s.sed. He did not care to discuss the subject with one who was an entire stranger to him, wondering that he should introduce such a personal subject, and at such a time and place.
"Excuse me, my friend, but I feel a little delicacy in discussing so personal a matter," he said, gently.
But this did not in the least abash Captain Frazier.
"It seems to me that I should insist upon proof positive--ay, proof beyond any possibility of doubt--that my first wife was dead ere I contracted a second alliance," remarked Frazier, quite significantly.
"Mr. Varrick believes that he has this, I understand," said the minister, gravely.
Frazier shrugged his shoulders, turned and looked at the man from under his lowering brows--a look which the minister did not relish.
"But, then, Varrick has always believed in second marriages," remarked Frazier, flippantly.
The minister started, giving an uncomfortable glance at the other.
"I believe the girl to whom he is about to be united is Varrick"s first love?" Frazier went on, nonchalantly.
"Indeed you are mistaken," retorted his companion earnestly. "I have known Hubert Varrick for long years, and to my certain knowledge he never had a fancy for any of the fair s.e.x previous to the time he met beautiful Miss Northrup. She was his first love. Of that I am quite positive."
By this time they had reached the bend in the road hard by the entrance gate.
The reverend gentleman could not help but notice that his companion seemed unduly excited over the questions which he had propounded and the answers which he had received thereto, and he felt not a little relieved at bidding him good-afternoon and thanking him for the service which he had rendered him; and he wondered greatly that he excused himself at the entrance gate, instead of accompanying him to the house, if he was as intimate a friend of the family as he claimed to be.
The minister proceeded slowly up the wide stone walk, from which the snow had been carefully brushed, with a very thoughtful expression on his face.
Mrs. Varrick stood at the drawing-room window, and, noticing his approach, hurriedly rang for a servant to admit him at once.
He found himself ushered into the wide corridor before he could even touch the bell. Mrs. Varrick was on the threshold of the drawing-room, waiting to greet him as he stepped forward.
"I thought I observed some one with you at the gate?" she said, as she held out her white hand, sparkling with jewels, to welcome him. "Why did you not bring your friend in with you?"
The minister bowed low over the extended white hand.
"You are very kind to accord me such a privilege," he declared, gratefully; "but the person to whom you allude is an entire stranger to me--a gentleman whom I met by the road-side, and whom I was obliged to call upon for a.s.sistance, being suddenly attacked with my old enemy, faintness. I may add, however, that he seemed to have been an acquaintance of the family."
"Perhaps he is an acquaintance of my _son_; his friends are so numerous that it is very hard for me to keep track of them," added Mrs. Varrick, asking: "Why did he not come into the house with you?"
"He declined, stating no reason," was the reply.
Looking through the drawing-room window a few moments later, the minister espied the stranger leaning against the gate, looking eagerly toward the house, and he called Mrs. Varrick"s attention to the fact at once.
She touched the bell quickly, and to the servant who appeared, she gave hurried instructions concerning the man.
"I have sent out to invite the gentleman to come into the house," she explained. "Hubert will be in directly, and I know that this will meet with his approval. He has very little time to spare to any one just now," she explained, with a smile, "he is so wrapped up in his _fiancee_, and will be, I suppose, from now on."
"Naturally," responded the minister, with a twinkle in his grave eyes.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
But we must now return to Gerelda. She fell back, pale and trembling, among the cushions of the carriage, her brain in a whirl, her heart panting almost to suffocation.
At the entrance gate of the old mansion, Gerelda dismissed the cab.
Stealing around by the rear wall, she entered the grounds by an unused gravel walk, and gained the arbor. Then she crept up to one of the windows whose blind had swung open from a fierce gust of wind. The room into which she gazed had not changed much. A bright fire glowed cheerily in the grate, its radiance rendering all objects about it clear and distinct.
She distinguished two figures standing hand in hand in the softened shadows. The girl"s face, radiant with the light of love, was upturned toward the handsome one bending over her. He was talking to her in the sweet, deep musical voice Gerelda remembered so well.
She saw the girl lay one little hand caressingly on his arm, and droop her pretty, golden head until it nearly rested on his broad shoulder.
Then Gerelda heard him say, "I have in my pocket the wedding-gift with which I am to present you. It is not so very costly, but you will appreciate it, I hope," disclosing as he spoke a ruby velvet case, the spring of which he touched lightly, and the lid flew back, revealing a magnificent diamond necklace and a pendant star.
"Oh, Hubert, you can not mean that that is for me!" cried Jessie.
But the second dinner-bell rang, and ere the sound died away, Mrs.
Varrick and a few guests entered the room. All further private conversation was now at an end, but from that moment all sights and sounds were lost to the creature outside. She had fallen in a little dark heap on the ice-covered porch, lost to the world"s misery in pitiful unconsciousness.
The house was wrapped in darkness when she woke to consciousness.
Gerelda struggled to her feet, muttering to herself that it was surely death that was stealing slowly but surely over her.
Slowly, from over the distant hills, she heard some church-clock ring out the hour. "Eleven!" she counted, in measured strokes. As the sound died away, Gerelda crept round the house to the servants" entrance.
To her intense delight, the door yielded to her touch, and Gerelda glided noiselessly across the threshold. The butler sat before the dying embers of the fire, his paper was lying at his feet, and his gla.s.ses were in his lap. So sound was his slumber that he did not awaken as the door opened. Gerelda pa.s.sed him like a shadow and gained the door-way that led into the corridor.