ou at once, and
tell you that Hubert Varrick is now free. A carriage is in waiting. Come
at once. Mrs. Varrick awaits you there," he adding, noting how stunned
the girl looked, as though she could hardly believe what she heard.

There was one thing that Jessie never quite fully understood: how she
reached the lonely cottage of the old butler. She believed his mind must
have been wandering when he gave such a singular account of a runaway,
and a gentleman being with her in the coupe. She firmly insisted that
the butler must have chloroformed her, abducted her, and brought her to
that place, in the hope that she would then be powerless to aid Hubert
Varrick.

Who could describe the meeting between Hubert and Jessie and Mrs.
Varrick which occurred an hour later at the Varrick mansion.

Hubert would have taken the girl he loved so madly, in his arms on sight
and covered her face with kisses, but she held him off at arm's-length,
though she longed to rest in his strong arms and weep on the broad bosom
that she knew beat for her alone.

"No, you must not touch me, Hubert," she whispered. "It would not seem
right so--so soon after--after poor Gerelda's untimely death."

"Forgive me--pardon me, Jessie," he answered, brokenly. "For the moment
I had--_forgotten_, my love for you was so great!"

Here Mrs. Varrick quickly interposed:

"Jessie is quite right, my boy," she said. "You must not mention one
word of love to her for many a day yet. Perhaps your troubles will be
over before many months."

"If you both think that, it will not do for me to remain beneath this
roof where Jessie is," he declared, huskily. "I am only human, you know,
and we both love each other so!"

Thus it was that it was arranged that it was best for Hubert to go away,
travel abroad, and return a year from that day to claim Jessie. But it
was with many misgivings that Hubert tore himself away.

"If anything comes of this enforced separation, always remember that I
pleaded hard against it, but in the end yielded to your wishes." On the
morrow Hubert Varrick left Boston.

During the months that followed Jessie lived quietly at the Varrick
mansion with Hubert's mother.

The year of probation had not yet waned, when, one lovely April morning,
while Jessie was walking through the grounds that surrounded the
mansion, she espied a bearded stranger standing at the gate, leaning on
it with folded arms, evidently lost in admiration of the early
blossomi