l'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."

"I