"Mr. Varrick!" she gasped, faintly. At that instant the train stopped at the station.
"You must not go on board!" he cried, excitedly. "Jessie, you must listen to what I have to say to you," he commanded. "You must not go to New York."
There was a sternness in his voice that held her spell-bound for an instant.
"Come into the waiting-room," he said. "I must speak with you."
Drawing her hand within his arm, he fairly compelled her to obey him; and as they crossed the threshold the train thundered on again.
The room was crowded. This certainly was not the time or place to utter the burning words that were on his lips. An idea occurred to him. He would get a coach, drive about the city, through the park, and as they rode, he could talk with her entirely free from interruption.
Hailing a coach that stood by the curbstone, he proceeded to assist his companion into it. She was too overcome by emotion to exert any will of her own.
He took his seat by her side, and a moment later they were bowling slowly down the wide avenue through which he had driven so furiously but a little while before.
"Now, Jessie," he began, tremulously; "listen to me, I pray you. I have traveled all the way back to Boston for your dear sake, to see you, to hold your hands, to speak with you, and to tell you I do not consider the little tear-blotted note you sent me, a fitting answer to my letter. I can not take 'no,' for an answer, Jessie, dear. You could not mean it. When I read what you wrote me, in answer to my burning words of love, it nearly unmanned me. You said, in that little note, that you did care for me; you acknowledged it. Now, I ask you, why, if this be true, would you doom me, as well as yourself, to a life of misery. You say there is a mystery, deep and fathomless, which separates us from each other for all time to come? This I must refuse to believe. You say it is something which my mother knows? Will you confess to me, Jessie, my darling, my precious one, just what you mean? Remember that the happiness of two lives hangs upon your answer."
The girl was crying as though her heart would break, her lovely face buried in her hands.