"Varrick Place isn't home to me any longer, Mr. Moray," she sobbed. "I have just left it to-day—left it forever. I wish I had never seen the place. It has caused me no end of sorrow."
"I do not wish to pry into any of your affairs," he said, gently, as he took her hand and walked slowly down the path with her; "but if you will confide in me and tell me why you left, 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.