Jessie Bain looked at the angry lady in puzzled wonder. She nestled up
closer to the handsome, broad-shouldered fellow, murmuring audibly:

"Why don't you tell her that I am Jessie Bain, and that you are my best
friend on earth?"

The lady had heard enough to condemn the girl in her eyes.

She advanced toward her, livid with rage, and flung the girl's little
white hands back from her son's arm.

"Go!" she cried, quivering with rage; "leave this house instantly, or I
will call the servants to put you into the street? It's such girls as
you that ruin young men!"

"Mother," interrupted Hubert, "Jessie Bain must not be sent from this
house. If she leaves, I shall go with her!"

CHAPTER VII.

EVERY YOUNG GIRL WOULD LIKE A LOVER. AND WHY NOT? FOR LOVE IS THE
GRANDEST GIFT THE GODS CAN GIVE.

A thunder-bolt falling from a clear sky could not have startled the
proud Mrs. Varrick more than those crushing words that fell from the
lips of her handsome son--"Mother, if you turn Jessie Bain from your
door, I go with her!"

Mrs. Varrick drew herself up to her full height and advanced into the
room like an angry queen.

"Hubert," she cried, in a tone that he had never heard from his mother's
lips before, "I can make all due allowance for the follies of a young
man, but I say this to you: you should never have permitted this girl to
cross your mother's threshold."

"Give me a chance to speak a few words, mother," he interrupted. "Let me
set matters straight. The whole fault is mine, because I have not
explained this affair to you before. I put it off from day to day."

In a few brief words he explained.

In her own mind, quick as a flash, a sudden thought came to her that
there was more behind this than had been told to her.

She had wondered why Gerelda Northrup, the beauty and the heiress, fled
from her handsome son at the very altar. Now she began to think that
she might have had a reason for it other than that which the world
knew.

She was diplomatic; she was too worldly wise to seek to separate them
then and there. She said to herself it must be done by strategy.

"This puts the matter in quite a different light, Hubert," she said;
"and while I am slightly incensed at your not telling me about this
affair, I can readily understand the kindly impulse which prompted you
to protect this young girl. But I can not allow _you_ to outdo me;
Jessie must consider _me_ quite as much her friend as you. She sha