Chapter 26

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 God! 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 passed; 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.

For two long and weary weeks Jessie Bain was too ill to leave the shelter of that roof. Hubert Varrick took rooms in a lodging-house opposite, that he might be near her at all times.

Great was Jessie Bain's consternation, when consciousness returned to her, to find herself in a hospital, with a kindly-faced nurse bending over her.

"What has happened?" she cried. "Why am I here? Ah, let me get back to Miss Rosamond!" she cried. "She will be so very angry with me."

Gently the nurse informed her that she had been there a fortnight. She told her how a gentleman had saved her from the terrible storm, bringing her there in his arms, his own coat wrapped about her, and how he had ever since spent his time hanging about the place, feeing with gold those who attended her to do everything in their power for her.

"I did not know that there was any one in this whole wide world that would do so much for me," murmured Jessie, in bewilderment. "Please thank him for me, kind nurse."

"Nay, you must do that yourself, child," said the woman, smilingly. "And let me tell you this: he seems to be greatly in love with you."

"It can not be."

"I assure you that it is quite true. Every one is speaking of how devoted he is to you. If I were you, I'd-- Ah! here he comes now. I will leave you alone with him to thank him, my dear."

So saying, the nurse left the room.

"Little Jessie!" Hubert whispered, almost beside himself with joy.

"Mr. Varrick!" she breathed in a low voice of awe.

Then he poured a tale of passionate love into her ears, but before Jessie could answer he had caught the little hands again in his warm clasp, covered them with kisses, and was gone.

Jessie Bain tried to collect her scattered senses. Her head seemed in a whirl. All that had happened within the last few minutes appeared but the coinage of her own brain.

When the nurse came in again she found the girl feverish with excitement.

"Come, come, my dear; this will never do," said the nurse. "You will be sure to have a relapse if you are not very careful. Think how badly that would make the young man feel."

Jessie smiled. Suddenly a low cry broke from her lips, and she started up pale with emotion. She had suddenly recalled poor Margaret and she told the nurse the whole story.

"Give me her address, and I will telegraph there for you," said the nurse. "To be frank with you, the gentleman left a well-filled purse, which he bid us place at your disposal. You are to want for no luxury that money can purchase for you."

Jessie Bain was overcome by the wonderful kindness of Hubert Varrick. Her first thought was that she could never accept another penny, for she was too much indebted to him already. Then came the thought of Margaret--poor Margaret! She begged the nurse to send a telegram in all haste, informing the boarding-house keeper that the money for Margaret Moore's board would be forthcoming.

This request was carried out at once, and within an hour the answer came back that Jessie Bain's telegram had come too late. No money having come in time for the girl's board, she had been sent to one of the public asylums, and while _en route_ there, by some means she had made her escape, and her whereabouts was then unknown.

Jessie's grief was great upon hearing this. The nurse believed that the bitter sobs which shook Jessie's slender frame would give her a relapse that would keep her there for many a day.

"There is but one thing to do," she said, trying to console Jessie, "and that is to get back your health and strength as soon as you can, and make a search for her. You will find her if you advertise and offer a reward to any one who will tell you of her whereabouts."

Surely, the money which Hubert Varrick had placed at her disposal could not be used for a nobler purpose; and then, if Heaven intended her to get well and strong again, she could soon pay him the amount borrowed. Again the nurse did everything in her power to carry out her patient's wishes. The advertisement duly appeared in the leading New York papers, but as the days passed, all hope that she would be able to find Margaret was abandoned.

In the third day after Hubert Varrick's departure, a long letter came for her.

"What do you think I have for you, Miss Bain?" said the nurse.

"Has the--the letter come that Mr. Varrick said he would write?" she asked, eagerly.

"That's just what it is," was the smiling reply; and the thick, white envelope was placed in her hands.

"I will leave you alone while you read it, Miss Bain," and added smilingly: "A young girl loves best to be alone when she reads such a letter as I imagine this to be. There--there; don't blush and look so embarrassed."

The next moment Jessie was alone with Hubert's letter.