"I am sure it is nothing to you or to me whom Jessie Bain chooses to fall in love with," she answered, coldly. "You forget yourself in reproaching me with it, my son," and with these words she swept from the room.
The door had barely closed after her ere Hubert threw himself down into the nearest chair, covering his face with his hands.
He had loved Gerelda Northrup as few men love in a life-time, but with the belief that she had eloped with another, growing up in his heart, he had been able to stifle that love, root it from his heart, blossom and branch, with an iron will, until at last he knew if he came face to face with Gerelda she would never again have the power to thrill his heart with the same passion.
And, sitting there, he was face to face with the truth—that his heart, in all its loneliness, had gone out to Jessie Bain in the rebound, and he knew that life would never be the same to him if she were to prefer another to himself.
He rang the bell sharply, and in response to the summons one of the servants soon appeared.
"Send the architect—the young man whom you will find in the new western wing of the house—to me at once. Tell him to bring his drawings with him."
Hubert Varrick paced nervously up and down the library until the young man entered the room.
"You sent for me, Mr. Varrick," he said, with a smile on his frank, handsome face, "and I made haste to come to you."
"I wish to inspect your drawings," he said, tersely, as he waved the young man to a seat.
Frank Moray laid them down upon the table. There was something in Varrick's manner that startled him, for he had always been courteous and pleasant to him before.