She never forgot the expression of her son's face; it was livid and white as death. This betrayed his secret. He loved Jessie Bain himself![Pg 50] [Pg 50] Chapter VIII. Chapter VIII A MOTHER'S DESPERATE SCHEME. "What makes you think the young architect is in love with Jessie Bain, mother? I think it is an absurd idea." "Why do you call it absurd?" returned Mrs. Varrick. "It is perfectly natural." Hubert turned on her in a rage so great that it fairly appalled her. "Why did you permit this sort of thing to go on, mother?" he cried. "It is all your fault. You are accountable for it, I say." Mrs. Varrick rose from her seat and looked haughtily at her son, her heart beating with great, stifling throbs. In all the years of their lives they had never before exchanged one cross word with each other, and in that moment she hated, with all the strength of her soul, the girl who had sown discord between them, and she wished that Heaven had stricken the girl dead ere her son had looked upon her face. "I am sure it is nothing to you or to me whom Jessie Bain chooses to fall in love with," she answered, coldly. "You forget yourself in reproaching me with it, my son," and with these words she swept from the room. The door had barely closed after her ere Hubert[Pg 51] threw himself down into the nearest chair, covering his face with his hands. [Pg 51] He had loved Gerelda Northrup as few men love in a life-time, but with the belief that she had eloped with another, growing up in his heart, he had been able to stifle that love, root it from his heart, blossom and branch, with an iron will, until at last he knew if he came face to face with Gerelda she would never again have the power to thrill his heart with the same passion. And, sitting there, he was face to face with the truth—that his heart, in all its loneliness, had gone out to Jessie Bain in the
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