With a low cry he bent forward.
"Then it is you, Gerelda— Mrs. Varrick?"
Rosamond Lee, whose face had grown from red to white, sprung excitedly to her feet.
"What mystery is this?" she cried. "What do you mean by calling this girl Mrs. Varrick? There is a friend of mine—a Mr. Hubert Varrick—who is soon to be married to a Jessie Bain. You haven't the two mixed, have you, sir?"
Frazier turned impatiently to her.
"I have seen the announcement of Hubert Varrick's marriage to Jessie Bain," he returned, his face darkening. "But the question is: how dare he attempt to marry another girl while he has a wife living. I do not know who you may be, madame," facing Rosamond impatiently. "You say that you know Hubert Varrick well, yet you do not appear conversant with his history. He married this young girl sitting beside you, who was then Miss Gerelda Northrup. On their wedding journey the steamer 'St. Lawrence' was lost, and she was supposed by all her friends to have perished in the frightful accident."
While he had been speaking, Gerelda—for it was indeed she—had been watching him intently.
As he proceeded with his story, a great tremor shook her frame.
With a low cry she sprung to her feet.
"Oh, I remember— I remember all now!" shrieked Gerelda. "I— I was on the train with Hubert whom I had just married. Then we went on the steamer. We had a quarrel, and he told me that he did not love me, even though he had wedded me, and I— Oh, the words drove me mad! There was a great rumbling of the boiler, a crashing of timbers, and I felt myself plunged in the water. But my head—it pains so terribly! I scarcely felt the chill of the water. The next I remember I was lying in a cottage, with a young girl bending over me. My God! it was Jessie Bain, my enemy. I remember it all now. I wonder that memory did not come back to me when I heard the name Jessie Bain. She did not know that it was I who was Hubert Varrick's wife, or she would have let me die."