, I might be able to help you."

Little by little he drew from the girl the whole terrible story, until
she had told him all.

Frank Moray's indignation knew no bounds. He could hardly restrain
himself from ejaculations of anger.

"Of course, if you have friends, it would ill become me to persuade you
not to go to them; but if you ask my advice, I would say: remain here
for a little while and look about you. Come home with me. I have a dear
old mother who will receive you with open arms. My cousin Annabel, too,
will be glad to welcome you. Come home and talk to mother and let her
advise you what to do. Will you come with me, Miss Jessie?"

The girl was only too glad to assent.

When Jessie had finished her story, the impulse was strong within the
young architect's breast to ask the girl to marry him, then and there.

He had never ceased caring for her from the first moment he had seen her
pretty face. But he told himself that it would seem too much like taking
an unfair advantage to say anything of love or marriage to her now.

Mrs. Moray received the stranger with motherly kindness.

"I have heard my son speak of you so often that I feel as though I were
well acquainted with you," she said, untying the girl's bonnet and
removing her mantle.

"Come here, Annabel, my dear," she said, turning to a young girl who sat
in a little low rocker by the sewing machine, "and welcome Miss Bain."

A slim, slight girl, in a jaunty blue cloth dress edged with white,
rose and came curiously forward, extending a little brown hand to
Jessie.

"I am very glad to see you, Miss Bain," she said; "for Frank has talked
of you so much."

"Won't you please call me Jessie?" returned the other. "No one has ever
called me Miss Bain before."

"Nothing would please me better," returned Annabel.

They spent a very pleasant evening, and then Annabel took Jessie off to
her room with her for the night.

Long after the two girls had retired Mrs. Moray and her son sat talking
the matter over, and it was not long before Mrs. Moray discovered that
her boy was deeply in love with pretty Jessie Bain.

Of course, like himself, she felt perfectly sure that the girl was
entirely innocent of what she had been accused of by Mrs. Varrick.

But the very idea of the theft sent a thrill of horror through her
heart. She must discourage her son's love for the girl, for she would
rather see him dead and buried than wedded to one upon whose fair name
e