promised to teach me to sketch;" and her lovely face clouded.

"Would not I do as well?" asked Hubert Varrick, gently, as his hand closed over the little white one so near his own.

The girl trembled beneath his touch. In that one moment her heart went from her, and she experienced the sweet elysium of a young life just awakening to love's bewildering dream.

"Would I not make as good a teacher?" repeated Varrick, softly; and he bent his dark, handsome head, looking earnestly into the girl's flushed face.

"Perhaps," she answered, evasively; and she was very much relieved to hear some one calling her at that moment.

Mrs. Varrick heard of the proposed sketching lessons with great displeasure. Despite all that she had done and said, she saw these two young people falling more and more in love with each other with every passing day.

"How can I stop it? What shall I do?" she asked herself night after night, as she paced the floor of her boudoir.

She fairly cursed the hour that brought lovely, innocent little Jessie Bain beneath that roof, and she[Pg 55] wished she knew of some way in which to get rid of the girl for good and all.

[Pg 55]

She paced the floor until the day dawned. A terrible scheme against the life and happiness of poor Jessie Bain had entered her brain—a scheme so dark and horrible that even she grew frightened as she contemplated it.

Then she set her lips together, muttering hoarsely:

"I would do anything to part my son and Jessie Bain!"

Chapter IX.

Chapter IX

GERELDA'S ESCAPE FROM WAU-WINET ISLAND.

The fire at Wau-Winet Island, as the papers had explained, had taken place during the owner's absence. No one knew how it had happened; there seemed to be no one left to tell the tale.

When Captain Frazier returned that evening and found the place in ruins, he was almost wild with grief. In his own mind he felt that he knew how it had come about.

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