Kidnapped at the Altar Part 22

As he stood gazing at it, the clock in some adjacent steeple slowly struck the midnight hour. He wondered if Jessie was there. How he felt like telling some one his troubles!

CHAPTER XX.

LOVE IS A POISONED ARROW IN SOME HEARTS.

Early the next morning Varrick was at the scene of the disaster, though he was scarcely fit to leave his bed at the village hostelry. Most of the bodies had been recovered or accounted for, save that of Gerelda.

Varrick was just about to offer a large reward to any one who would recover it, when two fishermen were seen making their way in a little skiff toward the scene of the wreck.

There was some object covered over with a dark cloak in the bottom of their boat. They were making for the sh.o.r.e upon which the wreck was strewn.

Varrick sprung forward.

"Is it the body of a woman you have there?" he cried.

They lifted it out tenderly and uncovered the face. It was mutilated beyond recognition, and the clothing was so torn and soiled by the action of the waves that scarcely enough of it remained intact, to disclose its color or texture.

There was great consternation when Hubert Varrick returned home with the body of his bride, and more than one whispered: "Fate seems to have been against that marriage from the very first! 'What is to be, will be.'

These two proposed to marry, but a Higher Power decreed that they were not for each other."

The same thought had come to Hubert Varrick as he paced wearily up and down his own room.

It was a nine-days' subject for pity and comment, and then the public ceased to think about it, and Gerelda's fate was at last forgotten.

Hubert Varrick then arranged his business for a trip abroad, and when he said good-bye to his mother and Mrs. Northrup, he added that he might be gone years, perhaps forever.

In the very moment that he uttered those words, how strange it was that the thought came over him that he might never see Jessie Bain again.

But this thought, at such a time, he put from him as unworthy to linger in his breast. And when the "City of Paris" sailed away, among her pa.s.sengers was Hubert Varrick.

He watched the line of sh.o.r.e until it disappeared from his sight, and a heavy sigh throbbed on his lips as his thoughts dwelt sadly on Gerelda, his fair young bride, who lay sleeping on the hill-side just where the setting sun glinted the marble shaft over her grave with a touch of pale gold.

Let us return to the cottage home of Jessie Bain, and see what is taking place there on this memorable day.

For a week after the unfortunate young girl was brought under that roof, carried there from the wreck, her life hung as by a single thread. The waves had been merciful to her, for they had balked death by washing her ash.o.r.e.

A handkerchief marked with the name "Margaret Moore" had been found floating near her, and this, they supposed, belonged to her.

How strange it is that such a little incident can change the whole current of a human being's life.

The daily papers far and wide duly chronicled the rescue of Margaret Moore. No one recognized the name, no friends came to claim her. They had made a pitiful discovery, however, in the interim--the poor young creature had become hopelessly insane, whether through fright, or by being struck upon the head by a piece of the wreck, they could not as yet determine.

Jessie Bain's pity for her knew no bounds. She pleaded with her uncle with all the eloquence she was capable of to allow the stranger to remain beneath that roof and in the end her pleading prevailed, and Margaret Moore was installed as a fixture in the Carr homestead.

Jessie Bain would sit and watch her by the hour, noting how soft and white her hands were, and how ladylike her manners. She said to herself that she must be a perfect lady, and to the manner born.

There was something so pathetic about her--(she was by no means violent)--that Jessie could not help but love her. And the words were ever upon her lips, that she was to be parted from her lover as soon as her journey ended; that he had discovered all, and now he had ceased to love her; that twice she had nearly won him, but that fate had stepped in-between them.

Of course, Jessie knew that her words were but the outgrowth of a deranged mind, and that there had been no lover on the steamer "St.

Lawrence" with Margaret Moore. All day long the girl would wring her hands and call for her lover, until it made Jessie's heart bleed to hear her.

But there was no tangible sense to any remarks that she made. She seemed so grateful to Jessie, who in turn grew very fond of her grateful charge. Jessie Bain was not a reader of the newspapers. She never knew that Hubert Varrick had been on the ill-fated "St. Lawrence" on that memorable night, and that he had lost his bride.

Frank Moray, who had been only too glad to send Jessie the item announcing Hubert Varrick's marriage to another, took good care not to let her know that Varrick was free again. So the girl dreamed of him as being off in Europe somewhere, happy with his beautiful bride. Of course, he had forgotten her long since--that was to be expected; in fact, she would not have it otherwise.

Two months had gone by since that Hallowe'en night. It had made little change in the Carr household. The captain still plied his trade up and down the river, Jessie divided her time between taking care of her uncle's humble cottage and watching over poor Margaret Moore.

There were times when the girl really seemed to understand just how much Jessie was doing for her, and certainly it was grat.i.tude that looked out of the dark, wistful eyes.

There were times too when Jessie was quite sure that Memory was struggling back to its vacant throne.

"Who are you?" she would whisper, earnestly, gazing into Jessie's face.

"And what is your name? It seems as if I had heard it and known it in some other world."

Jessie would laugh amusedly at this. Once, much to Jessie's surprise, when she questioned her as to why she was sitting in the sunshine, thinking so deeply upon some subject, Margaret Moore answered simply:

"I was thinking about love!"

There were times when Margaret Moore seemed rational enough; but her past life was a blank to her. She always insisted that Jessie Bain's face was the first she had ever seen in this world.

It was the first one which she had beheld when consciousness came to her as she lay on her sick-bed; and to say that she fairly idolized Jessie was but expressing it very mildly.

The day came when she proved that devotion with a heroism that people never forgot. It happened in this way:

One cold, frosty morning early in January, in tidying up Petie's cage, the door was accidently left open, and the little canary, who was Jessie's especial pride, slipped from his cage and flew out at the open door-way, into the bitter cold of the winter morn.

With a cry of terror, Jessie Bain sprung after her pet. Down the village street he flew, making straight toward the river, Jessie following as fast as her feet could carry her, wringing her hands and calling to him.

Margaret Moore followed in the rear. On the river's brink Jessie paused, and, with tears in her eyes, watched her pet in his mad flight. By this time Margaret Moore had caught up to her.

At that instant Jessie saw the bird whirl in mid-air, spread his yellow wings, then fall headlong upon the ice that covered the river, and Jessie sprang forward, and was soon making her way to where the canary lay. But the ice was not strong enough to bear her. There was a crash, a cry, and in an instant Jessie Bain had disappeared. The ice had given way beneath her weight, and the dark waters had swallowed her.

For an instant Margaret Moore stood dazed; then, with a shriek of terror, she flew over the ice and was kneeling at the spot where Jessie had disappeared, watching for her to come to the surface.

Once, twice, the golden hair showed for an instant; but each time it eluded the grasp of the girl who made such agonizing attempts to catch it. The third and last time it appeared. Would she be able to save her?

Margaret Moore turned her white face up to Heaven, and her lips moved; then she reached forward, plunged her right arm desperately down into the ice-cold water, grasped at the sinking form, and caught it; but she could not draw the body up.

"Jessie Bain! Jessie Bain!" she cried; "you will slip away from me! I can not hold you!

"Help! help!" she shrieked, in terror. But there was no help at hand.

All in vain were her pitiful cries. Margaret's hands were torn and bleeding, and slowly but surely freezing. They must soon relax their hold, and poor Jessie Bain would slip down, down into a watery grave.

Ten, twenty minutes pa.s.sed. Surely it was by a superhuman effort that that slender arm retained its burden; but it could not hold out much longer.