false though it is."
The captain arched his eyebrows.
"I think I could bring satisfactory proof as to where you passed your time."
Hubert Varrick, standing behind the foliage, was fairly stricken dumb by what he heard and saw.
He did not love his bride, but he believed in her implicitly. All the old doubt which had filled his heart and killed his love for Gerelda came surging back like a raging torrent, sweeping over his very soul.
In that instant the thought of Jessie Bain came to him—sweet little Jessie, whose love for him he had read in her every glance, and to whom he had given all his heart with a deeper, stronger love than he had ever given to Gerelda, even in those old days. How he longed to break from the terrible nightmare which seemed to fetter him!
"Your offer of a thousan
