Jolly Sally Pendleton; Or, the Wife Who Was Not a Wife

CHAPTER VIII.

Doctor Jay Gardiner, with as much speed as possible, made his way up the long, steep flights of dark, narrow stairs, and through the still darker passages, which were only lighted by the open doors here and there, revealing rooms inhabited by half a dozen persons. They were all talking, fighting or scrambling at the same time; and the odor of that never-to-be-forgotten smell of frying onions and sausages greeted his nostrils at every turn until it seemed to him that he must faint.

"Great heavens! how can so fair a young girl live in an atmosphere like this?" he asked himself.

At length, almost exhausted, for he was unused to climbing, this haughty, aristocratic young doctor found himself on the sixth floor of the tenement house, and he knocked at the first door he came to.

It was opened by the young girl Bernardine. He could see at a glance that her face bore the traces of trouble, and the dark eyes, still heavy with unshed tears, showed signs of recent weeping.

"Oh, I am so glad that you have come, doctor!" she said, clasping her little hands. "My poor father is so much worse. Please step in this way!"

He was ushered into a little sitting-room, and as he entered it he saw that everything was scrupulously neat and clean.

"Poor papa is out of his mind, doctor. Please come quickly, and see him!"

It did not require a second glance for the doctor to understand all; and straightway he proceeded to give the man a draught, which had the effect of quieting him. The young girl stood by the man with clasped hands and dilated eyes, scarcely breathing as she watched him.

The young doctor turned impulsively to the girl by his side.

"Pardon me for the question, but do you live alone with your father?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied in a voice that thrilled him as the grandest, sweetest music he had heard had never had power to do. "We have only each other," she added, watching the distorted face on the pillow with a fond wistfulness that made the young doctor, who was watching her, almost envy the father.

"I will come again to-morrow," he said, "and prescribe for him. I have done all the good that is possible for the present."

"Good-morning, Miss Moore," he said, standing with his hat in his hand, and bowing before her as if she were a princess. "If you should have occasion to need me in a hurry, send for me at once. This is my address." And he handed her his card.

Again she thanked him in a voice so sweet and low that it sounded to him like softest music.

He closed the door gently after him; and it seemed to him, as he walked slowly down the narrow dark stairs, that he had left Paradise and one of God's angels in it.

CHAPTER IX.

"Papa has been calling for you," she said. Then she stopped short, in dire confusion, as she remembered the reason why he was so anxious to see him. "He has just fallen into a light sleep. I will go and awaken him at once and tell him you are here."

"By no means," he said. "Pray do not awaken him; the sleep he is having is better than medicine. Will you permit me to sit down and talk with you for a few moments, until he awakens?"

She looked anxiously at him for a moment, then said, with charming frankness:

"Would you mind very much if I went on with my work. I have several baskets to be finished by night, when they will be called for."

"By no means. Pray proceed with your work. Do not let me disturb you," he answered, hastily. "I shall consider it a great favor if you will allow me to watch you as you work."

"Certainly," said Bernardine, "if you will not mind coming into our little work-shop," and she led the way with a grace that completely charmed him.

The place was devoid of any furniture save two or three wooden chairs, which the girl and her father occupied at their work, the long wooden bench, the great coils of willow—the usual paraphernalia of the basket-makers' trade.

She sat down on her little wooden seat, indicating a seat opposite for him. He watched her eagerly as her slim white fingers flew in and out among the strands of trailing willow quickly taking shape beneath her magic touch.

"It must be a very lonely life for you," said Jay Gardiner, after a moment's pause.

"I do not mind; I am never lonely when father is well," she answered, with a sweet, bright smile. "We are great companions, father and I. He regales me by the hour with wonderful stories of things he used to see when he was a steamboat captain. But he met with an accident one time, and then he had to turn to basket-making."

As he conversed with the young girl, Jay Gardiner was indeed surprised to see what a fund of knowledge that youthful mind contained. She was the first young girl whom he had met who could sit down and talk sensibly to a man. Her ideas were so sweet, so natural, that it charmed him in spite of himself. She was like a heroine out of a story-book—just such a one, he thought, as Martha Washington must have been in her girlhood days. His admiration and respect for her grew with each moment.

CHAPTER X.

Bernardine was slightly confused at first by his presence; then she began to view the matter in another light—that the young doctor had taken quite an interest in her father. He had certainly cured him of a terrible habit, and she was only too pleased that her father should have visits from so pleasant a man.

She always had some work in her slender white hands when the doctor called. Sometimes, glancing up unexpectedly, she would find the doctor's keen blue eyes regarding her intently, and she would bend lower over her sewing. Jay Gardiner, however, saw the flush that rose to her cheek and brow.

As he sat in that little tenement sitting-room—he who had been flattered and courted by the most beautiful heiresses—he experienced a feeling of rest come over him.

He would rather pass one hour in that plain, unpretentious sitting-room than visit the grandest Fifth Avenue mansion.

And thus a fortnight passed. At the end of that time, Jay Gardiner stood face to face with the knowledge of his own secret—that he had at last met in Bernardine Moore the idol of his life. He stood face to face with this one fact—that wealth, grandeur, anything that earth could give him, was of little value unless he had the love of sweet Bernardine.

It came upon him suddenly that the sweet witchery, the glamor falling over him was—love.

He realized that he lived only in Bernardine's presence, and that without her life would be but a blank to him. His love for Bernardine became the one great passion of his life. Compared with her, all other women paled into insignificance.

He fell, without knowing it, from a state of intense admiration into one of blind adoration for her. He had never before trembled at a woman's touch. Now, if his hand touched hers, he trembled as a strong tree trembles in a storm.

Looking forward to the years to come, he saw no gleam of brightness in them unless they were spent with the girl he loved.

Then came the awakening. He received a letter from Sally Pendleton, in which she upbraided him for not writing. That letter reminded him that he was not free; that before he had met Bernardine, he had bound himself in honor to another.

He was perplexed, agitated. He loved Bernardine with his whole heart, and yet, upon another girl's hand shone his betrothal-ring.

When the knowledge of his love for sweet Bernardine came to him, he told himself that he ought to fly from her; go where the witchery of her face, the charm of her presence, would never set his heart on fire; go where he could never hear her sweet voice again.

"Only a few days more," he said, sadly. "I will come here for another week, and then the darkness of death will begin for me, for the girl who holds me in such galling chains will return to the city."

Why should he not see Bernardine for another week? It would not harm her, and it would be his last gleam of happiness.

At this time another suitor for Bernardine's hand appeared upon the scene. On one of his visits to the Moores' home he met a young man there. The old basket-maker introduced him, with quite a flourish, as Mr. Jasper Wilde, a wine merchant, and his landlord. The two men bowed stiffly and looked at each other as they acknowledged the presentation.

Doctor Gardiner saw before him a heavy-set, dark-eyed young man with a low, sinister brow. An unpleasant leer curled his thin lips, which a black mustache partially shaded, and he wore a profusion of jewels which was disgusting to one of his refined temperament.

He could well understand that he was a wine merchant's son. He certainly gave evidence of his business, and that he had more money than good breeding. The word roué was stamped on his every feature.

Jay Gardiner was troubled at the very thought of such a man being brought in contact with sweet Bernardine. Then the thought flashed through his mind that this was certainly the man whom the woman on the doorstep had told him about.

Jasper Wilde, looking at the young doctor, summed him up as a proud, white-handed, would-be doctor who hadn't a cent in his pocket.

"I can see what the attraction is here—it's Bernardine; but I'll block his little game," he muttered. "The few weeks that I've been out of the city he has been making great headway; but I'll stop that."

The young doctor noticed that what the woman had told him was quite true. He could readily see that Bernardine showed a feeling of repugnance toward her visitor.

But another thing he noticed with much anxiety was, that the old basket-maker was quite hilarious, as though he had been dosed with wine or something stronger.

Jay Gardiner knew at once that this man must have known the basket-maker's failing and slipped him a bottle, and that that was his passport to favor.

Doctor Gardiner talked with David Moore and his daughter, addressing no remarks whatever to the obnoxious visitor.

"The impudent popinjay is trying to phase me," thought Wilde; "but he will see that it won't work."

Accordingly he broke into every topic that was introduced; and thus the evening wore on, until it became quite evident to Doctor Gardiner that Mr. Jasper Wilde intended to sit him out.

Bernardine looked just a trifle weary when the clock on the mantel struck ten, and Doctor Gardiner rose to depart.

"Shall I hold the light for you?" she asked. "The stair-way is always very dark."

"If you will be so kind," murmured the doctor.

Jasper Wilde's face darkened as he listened to this conversation. His eyes flashed fire as they both disappeared through the door-way.

On the landing outside Doctor Gardiner paused a few moments.

How he longed to give her a few words of advice, to tell her to beware of the man whom he had just left talking to her father! But he remembered that he had not that right. She might think him presumptuous.

If he had only been free, he would have pleaded his own suit then and there. That she was poor and unknown, and the daughter of such a father, he cared nothing.

Ah! cruel fate, which forbid him taking her in his arms and never letting her go until she had promised to be his wife!

As it was, knowing that he loved her with such a mighty love, he told himself that he must look upon her face but once again, and then it must be only to say farewell.

"The night is damp and the air is chill, and these narrow halls are draughty. Do not stand out here," he said, with eager solicitude; "you might catch cold."

She laughed a sweet, amused laugh.

"I am used to all kinds of weather, Doctor Gardiner," she said. "I am always out in it. I make the first track in winter through the deep snows. I go for the work in the morning, and return with it at night. You know, when one is poor, one can not be particular about such little things as the weather; it would never do."

CHAPTER XI.

He turned away quickly. In another moment he would have committed himself. He had almost forgotten that he was bound to another, and would have been kneeling at her feet in another minute but for the sound of her father's voice, which brought him to himself.

"Bernardine!" cried her father, fretfully, "what are you doing out there so long in the hall? Don't you know that Mr. Wilde is waiting here to talk with you?"

A pitiful shadow crossed the girl's face. Evidently she knew what the man had to say to her.

Tears which she could not resist came to her eyes, and her lovely lips trembled.

Doctor Gardiner could not help but observe this.

"Bernardine," he cried, hoarsely, forgetting himself for the moment, "I should like to ask something of you. Will you promise to grant my request?"

"Yes," she murmured, faintly and unhesitatingly.

"Do not trust the man to whom your father is talking."

"There is little need to caution me in regard to him, Doctor Gardiner," she murmured. "My own heart has told me that already——"

She stopped short in great embarrassment, and Doctor Gardiner thought it best not to pursue the subject further, for his own peace of mind as well as hers.

He turned abruptly away, and was quickly lost to sight in the labyrinth of stair-ways.

With slow steps Bernardine had re-entered her apartments again. As she approached the door, she heard Jasper Wilde say to her father in an angry, excited voice:

"There is no use in talking to you any longer; it must be settled to-night. I do not intend to wait any longer."

"But it is so late!" whined the basket-maker in his high, sharp treble.

"You knew I was coming, and just what I was coming here for. Why didn't you get rid of the poor, penny doctor, instead of encouraging him?"

"I could not say much to the doctor, for he had my life in his hands, and saved it."

"There might be worse things for you to face," replied the man, menacingly. And the poor old basket-maker understood but too well what he meant.

"Yes, yes," he said, huskily, "you must certainly speak to Bernardine this very night, if I can get her to give you a hearing. I will do my best to influence her to have you."

"Influence!" exclaimed the man, savagely. "You must command her!"

"Bernardine is not a girl one can command," sighed the old man. "She likes her own way, you know."

"It isn't for her to say what she wants or doesn't want!" exclaimed the man savagely. "I shall look to you to bring the girl round to your way of thinking, without any nonsense. Do you hear and comprehend?"

"Yes," said the old man, wearily. "But that isn't making Bernardine understand. Some young girls are very willful!"

Trembling with apprehension, the old basket-maker dropped into the nearest chair.

His haggard face had grown terribly pale, and his emaciated hands shook, while his eyes fairly bulged from their sockets. The agony of mind he was undergoing was intense.

"Will Bernardine refuse this man?" he muttered to himself, "Oh, if I but dared tell her all, would she pity, or would she blame me?"

He loved the girl after his own fashion; but to save himself he was willing to sacrifice her. Poor Bernadine! Had she but known all!

CHAPTER XII.

"Why do you refuse me?" he asked. "I am a big catch, especially for a girl like you. Come, I have taken a notion to you, Bernardine, and that's saying a good deal."

"Spare yourself the trouble of uttering another word, Mr. Wilde," she said, with dignity. "I would not, I could not marry you under any circumstances. It is as well for you to know that."

"So you think now; but I fancy we can change all that; can't we, Moore?"

The old basket-maker's lips moved, but no sound came from them; the terror in his eyes became more apparent with each moment.

"I will never change my decision," said Bernardine.

Jasper Wilde drew his chair up nearer to the girl.

"Listen to me, Bernardine," he said. "You shall marry me, by all the gods above and all the demons below! I have never been thwarted in any wish or desire of my life. I shall not be thwarted in this!"

"You would not wish me to marry you against my will?" said the girl.

"That would make little difference to me," he rejoined. "You will like me well enough after you marry me; so never fear about that."

"I do not propose to marry you," replied Bernardine, rising haughtily from her seat. "While I thank you for the honor you have paid me, I repeat that I could never marry you."

"And I say that you shall, girl, and that, too, within a month from to-day," cried the other, in a rage.

"Oh, Bernardine, say 'Yes!'" cried the old man, trembling like an aspen leaf.

"I have never gone contrary to your wishes, father, in all my life," she said; "but in this instance, where my interests are so deeply concerned, I do feel that I must decide for myself."

With a horrible laugh, Jasper Wilde quitted the room, banging the door after him.

With a lingering look at the beautiful young face, her father bid her good-night, and with faltering steps quitted the little sitting-room and sought his own apartment. A little later, Bernardine was startled to hear him moaning and sobbing as though he were in great pain.

"Are you ill, father?—can I do anything for you?" she called, going quickly to his door and knocking gently.

"No," he answered in a smothered voice. "Go to your bed, Bernardine, and sleep. It is a great thing to be able to sleep—and forget."

"Poor papa!" sighed the girl, "how I pity him! Life has been very hard to him. Why are some men born to be gentlemen, with untold wealth at their command, while others are born to toil all their weary lives through for the meager pittance that suffices to keep body and soul together?"

She went slowly to her little room, but not to sleep. She crossed over to the window, sat down on a chair beside it, and looked up at the bit of starry sky that was visible between the tall house-tops and still taller chimneys, then down at the narrow deserted street so far below, and gave herself up to meditation.

"No, no; I could never marry Jasper Wilde!" she mused. "The very thought of it makes me grow faint and sick at heart; his very presence fills me with an indescribable loathing which I can not shake off. How differently the presence of Doctor Gardiner affects me! I—I find myself watching for his coming, and dreading the time when he will cease to visit papa."

Doctor Gardiner's coming had been to Bernardine as the sun to the violet. The old life had fallen from her, and she was beginning to live a new one in his presence.

As she sat by the window, she thought of the look the young doctor had given her at parting. The remembrance of it quickened the beating of her heart, and brought the color to her usually pale cheeks.

How different the young doctor was from Jasper Wilde! If the young doctor had asked her the same question Jasper Wilde had, would her answer have been the same?

The clock in an adjacent belfry slowly tolled the midnight hour. Bernardine started.

"How quickly the time has flown since I have been sitting here," she thought.

She did not know that it had been because her thoughts had been so pleasant. She heard a long-drawn sigh come from the direction of her father's room.

"Poor papa!" she mused; "I think I can guess what is troubling him so. He has spent the money we have saved for the rent, and fears to tell me of it. If it be so, Jasper Wilde, at the worst can but dispossess us, and we can find rooms elsewhere, and pay him as soon as we earn it. How I feel like making a confidant of Doctor Gardiner!"

Poor girl! If she had only done so, how much sorrow might have been spared her!

CHAPTER XIII.

The next mail, however, brought him a short note from Miss Rogers. He smiled as he read it, and laid it aside, little dreaming of what vital importance those few carelessly-written lines would be in the dark days ahead of him. It read as follows:

The terse letter was characteristic of the writer. Doctor Gardiner replaced it in its envelope, put it away in his desk, with the wish that she had mentioned her destination, then dismissed it from his mind.

At the identical moment Doctor Gardiner was reading Miss Rogers' letter, quite a pitiful scene was being enacted in the home of the old basket-maker.

It was with a shudder that he awoke and found the sunshine which heralded another day stealing into his narrow little room.

Bernardine had been stirring about for some time, and at length the savory odor of the frugal breakfast she was preparing reached him, and at that moment she called him.

When he made his appearance she saw at a glance that he must have passed a sleepless night. He had no appetite, and pushed away the plate with his food untouched, despite Bernardine's earnest efforts to induce him to eat something.

He watched her deft fingers in silence as she cleared the table at length, washed and dried the dishes and put them away, and tidied the little room.

"Now, father," she said, at length, "the sun is shining now, and I will give you half an hour of my time to listen to the story you have to tell me. Don't look so distressed about it, dear; no matter what it is, I will utter no word of complaint, you shall hear no bitter words from my lips, only words of love, trust and comfort."

"Tell me that again, Bernardine," he cried; "say it over again. Those words are like the dew of Heaven to my feverish soul."

She uttered the words again, with her soft white arms twined lovingly around his neck, and she held them there until he came to the end of his wretched story.

"Bernardine," he began, softly, with a pitiful huskiness in his voice, "I rely on your promise. You have given me your word, and I know you will never break it. Don't look at me. Let me turn my face away from the sight of the horror in your eyes as you listen. There, that is right; let my poor whirling head rest on your strong young shoulder.

"It happened only a few weeks ago, Bernardine," he continued, brokenly, "this tragedy which has wrecked my life. One night—ah! how well I remember it—even while I lie dying, it will stand out dark and horrible from the rest of my life—I—I could not withstand the craving for drink which took possession of me, and after you slept, I stole softly from my couch and out of the house.

"The few dimes I had in my pocket soon went where so many dollars of my—yes, even your humble earnings have gone before—in the coffers of the rum-shop.

"The liquor I drank seemed to fire my brain as it had never been fired before. I remember that I went to that place around the corner—the place that you and Doctor Gardiner saw them throw me out of that night you thought they had crippled me for life.

"The man who keeps the place saw me coming in, and made a dash at me. Then a terrible fight took place between us, and a crowd gathered, foremost among whom I dimly saw the face of Jasper Wilde outlined amidst the jeering throng.

"To hasten the telling of an unpleasant tale, I will say he ejected me, the while hurling the most insulting epithets at me. Then he spoke of you, Bernardine, and—and turning upon him with the ferocity of an enraged lion, I swore that I would kill him on sight.

"'Beware! take care,' laughed Jasper Wilde, turning to my enemy; 'the old basket-maker always keeps his word. You are in danger, my boy.'

"At this the crowd jeered. I hurried away. I never remembered how far I walked to still the throbbing of my heart and cool the fever in my veins.

"At length I turned my steps toward home. How far I had traversed in the darkness I did not take note of; but as I was hurrying along, I heard a loud cry for help. I ran around the corner from which it seemed to proceed, and then I fell headlong across the body of a man lying prone upon the pavement.

"I drew a box of matches from my pocket, and hastily struck one. Yes, it was a man dying with a wound in his breast, made from a clasp-knife, which still stuck in it.

"In horror I snatched the knife away; and as I did so, the blood from the wound spurted up into my face and covered my clothes. In that instant I made the awful discovery that the knife was my own. I must have lost it from my pocket during my encounter with my enemy, who kept the wine-room.

"By the flickering light of the half-burned match, which I held down to the man's face, I saw—oh, God! how shall I tell it?—I saw that the man who had been murdered with my knife was the man whom I had sworn before the crowd I would kill on sight.

"As I made this startling discovery, a man laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and Jasper Wilde's voice, with a demoniac ring, cried in my horrified ears:

"'I see you have kept your word, David Moore! You have murdered your enemy!'

"All in vain I protested my innocence. He only laughed at me, jeered at my agony with diabolical glee.

"'You will be hanged,' he said. 'Of course, you realize that, David Moore.'

"'I would not care for my life—what became of me—if it were not for Bernardine!' I moaned, wildly.

"'Yes, it is a pity for Bernardine,' he made answer. 'I am sorry for you on her account. How sad it will be to see you torn away from her, and she all alone in the world! Moore,' he hissed, close to my ear, 'for her sake, and upon one condition, I will save you from the gallows. No one but me has seen you bending over the murdered man with that knife in your hand. If I keep silent, no one can prove the crime was done by you. Do you comprehend—do you realize of what vital interest that which I am saying is to you?'

"'Yes,' I answered in a choked, awful voice. 'But the condition! What have I, a poor, penniless basket-maker, even at this moment owing you money—what have I which you, the son of a rich father, would stoop to accept?' I cried in the utmost despair. He stooped nearer, and whispered in my ear:

"'You have a treasure which I long to possess. Give me Bernardine. I—I will marry the girl, and will forever hold my peace. It will save you from prison. Think and act quickly, man. You can make the girl accept me if she should desire to refuse.'

"I heard the whistle of an advancing policeman coming leisurely along his beat. Another moment and he would turn the corner where I stood almost paralyzed.

"'Speak, man!' cried Jasper Wilde. 'Am I to save you, or call the officer to arrest you? Am I to get Bernardine, or not?'

"Oh, child! forgive me—pity me! Life to an old man even like me is sweet. I could almost feel the rope of the gallows tightening about my poor old throat, and I—oh, God, pity me—I promised him, Bernardine.

"'Save me, and Bernardine shall marry you!' I cried; 'only save me! Don't call the police, for the love of Heaven!'

"'Then fly!' he cried, shrilly. 'Take the knife with you; go as quickly as you can to my rooms, back of my place, and there I will give you something to wear until you can get home!'

"I made my way to his place, as he directed. He was there before me. He took the blood-stained clothes and knife from me, remarking, grimly:

"'I shall keep these, the evidences of your guilt, until you succeed in making Bernardine my wife. If she refuses, I shall need them.'

"Oh, Bernardine, from that hour to this I have lived a perfect hell on earth. I am as innocent of that crime as a babe; but everything is against me. Jasper Wilde has proof enough to send your poor, wretched old father to the gallows, if you refuse to marry him. Oh, Bernardine! I dare not lift my head and look up into your dear young face. Speak to me, child, and let me know the worst. This gnawing at my soul is intolerable—I can not bear it and live!"

But the lips of the hapless girl whose arms were twined about his neck were mute and cold as marble.

"Won't you speak to me, Bernardine?" he wailed out, sharply. "Your silence is more than I can bear. For God's sake, speak!"

CHAPTER XIV.

"My poor old life is not worth such a sacrifice, Bernardine!" he cried out, sharply; "and you shall not make it. I will put a drop of something I know of in a cup of coffee, and then it will be all over with me. He can not pursue me through the dark gates of death."

"No, no," said the girl, great, heavy tears—a blessed relief—falling from her eyes like rain. "Your life is more precious to me than all the world beside. I would take your place on the gallows and die for you, father. Oh, believe me!—believe me!"

"And you feel in your heart the truth of what I say—that I am innocent, Bernardine?" he cried. "Say you believe me."

"I would stake my life on your innocence, father," she replied, through her tears. "I believe in you as I do in Heaven. You shall not die! I will save you, father. I—I—will—marry Jasper Wilde, if that will save you!"

She spoke the words clearly, bravely. Her father did not realize that they nearly cost her her life—that they dug a grave long and deep, in which her hopes and rosy day-dreams were to be buried.

"You have saved me, Bernardine!" he cried, joyously. "Oh, how you must love me—poor, old, and helpless as I am!"

She answered him with kisses and tears; she could not trust herself to speak.

She rose abruptly from her knees, and quitted the room with unsteady steps.

"Thank Heaven it is over!" muttered David Moore, with a sigh. "Bernardine has consented, and I am saved!"

The day that followed was surely the darkest sweet Bernardine Moore had ever known. But it came to an end at last, and with the evening came Jay Gardiner.

He knew as soon as he greeted Bernardine and her father that something out of the usual order had transpired, the old basket-maker greeted him so stiffly, Bernardine so constrainedly.

Bernardine's manner was quite as sweet and kind, but she did not hold out to him the little hand which it was heaven on earth to him to clasp even for one brief instant.

Looking at her closely, he saw that her beautiful dark eyes were heavy and swollen with weeping.

"Poor child! She is continually grieving over the drinking habit of her father," he thought; and the bitterest anger rose up in his heart against the old basket-maker for bringing a tear to those beautiful dark eyes.

Again the longing came to him to beat down all barriers that parted her from him, take Bernardine in his arms, and crying out how madly he loved her, bear his beautiful love away as his idolized bride to his own palatial home. But the thought of that other one, to whom he was in honor and in duty bound, kept him silent.

He realized that for his own peace of mind and hers he must never see Bernardine again; that this must be the last time.

"I am sorry your father has fallen asleep, yet I do not wish to waken him, for I have come to say farewell to him and to you, Miss Moore," he said, huskily.

He saw the lovely face grow as white as a snow-drop; he saw all the glad light leave the great dark eyes; he saw the beautiful lips pale and the little hands tremble, and the sight was almost more than he could endure, for he read by these signs that which he had guessed before—that the sweet, fond, tender heart of Bernardine had gone out to him as his had gone out to her.

"Are you sorry, my poor girl?" he asked, brokenly.

"Yes," she answered, not attempting to stay her bitter tears, "I shall miss you. Life will never be the same to me again."

He stopped before her, and caught her passionately to him.

"Dear Heaven, help me to say good-bye to you!" he cried; "for you must realize the truth, Bernardine. I love you—oh, I love you with all the strength of my heart and soul! Yet we must part!"

CHAPTER XV.

"Why should I not tell you the secret that is eating my heart away!" he cried, hoarsely.

Before he could add another word, she answered, quickly:

"Let me tell you why it is not right to listen to you, Doctor Gardiner. I—I am the promised wife of Jasper Wilde!"

If she had struck him a blow with her little white hand he could not have been more astounded.

His arms fell to his sides, and his face grew ashen pale.

"You are to marry Jasper Wilde?" he cried, hoarsely. "I can not believe the evidence of my own senses, Bernardine!"

She did not answer, but stood before him with her beautiful head drooped on her breast.

"You do not love him, Bernardine!" cried Jay Gardiner, bitterly. "Tell me—answer me this—why are you to marry him?"

Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.

"If I should sue to you upon my bended knees to be mine, Bernardine, would you not turn from him for me?"

He knew by the piteous sob that welled from the very depths of her heart how deeply this question must have struck her.

"Bernardine," he cried, hoarsely, "if ever I read love in a girl's heart when her eyes have met mine, I have read it in yours! You love me, Bernardine. You can not, you dare not deny it. I repeat, if I were to sue you on my bended knees, could you, would you refuse to be my wife?"

"I—must—marry—Jasper Wilde," she whispered, wretchedly.

Without another word, stung by pride and pain, Jay Gardiner turned from the girl he had learned to love so madly, and hurried down the dark, winding stairs, and out into the street.

For one moment poor Bernardine gazed at the open door-way through which his retreating form had passed; then she flung herself down on her knees, and wept as women weep but once in a life-time.

Wounded love, outraged pride, the sense of keen and bitter humiliation, and yet of dread necessity, was strong upon her. And there was no help for her, no comfort in those tears.

"Was ever a girl so wronged?" she moaned.

She wept until there seemed to be no tears left in those dark, mournful eyes. As she lay there, like a pale, broken lily, with her head and heart aching, she wondered, in her gentle way, why this sorrow should have fallen upon her.

While she lay there, weeping her very heart out, Jay Gardiner was walking down the street, his brain in a whirl, his emotions wrenching his very soul.

Miss Pendleton had written him that she would expect him to call that evening. He had been about to write her that it would be an impossibility; but now he changed his mind. Going there would be of some benefit to him, after all, for it would bring him surcease of sorrow for one brief hour, forgetfulness of Bernardine during that time.

It touched him a little to see how delightedly the girl welcomed him. She, too, was a money-seeker like the rest of her sex; but he could also see that she was in love with him.

"I have been home for three days, and you have not even remembered that fact," she said, brightly, yet with a very reproachful look.

"If you will pardon the offense, I will promise not to be so remiss in the future."

"I shall hold you to your word," she declared. "But dear me, how pale and haggard you look! That will never do for a soon-to-be bridegroom!"

His brow darkened. The very allusion to his coming marriage was most hateful to him. Sally could see that, though she pretended not to notice it.

Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton came in to welcome him, being so profuse in their greeting that they annoyed him.

Louisa was more sensible. Her welcome was quiet, not to say constrained.

"If it had been Louisa instead of Sally," he mused, bitterly, "the fate that I have brought upon myself would be more bearable."

He was so miserable as he listened to Sally's ceaseless chatter that he felt that if he had a revolver, he would shoot himself then and there, and thus end it all.

CHAPTER XVI.

It was a relief to Jay Gardiner when he found himself out of the house and on the street. The short two hours he had passed in Sally's society were more trying on his nerves than the hardest day's work could have been.

He groaned aloud at the thought of the long years he was destined to live though, with this girl as his companion.

He had come at seven, and made his adieu at nine. Sally then went upstairs to her mother's room with a very discontented face, and entered the boudoir in anything but the best of humors.

Mrs. Pendleton looked up from the book she was reading, with an expression of astonishment and wonder.

"Surely Doctor Gardiner has not gone so soon!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, he has," replied Sally, laconically.

"I suppose some important duty called him away so early?"

"He did not say so," returned her daughter, crossly.

"Is he coming soon again?" questioned Mrs. Pendleton, anxiously.

"I don't know," replied Sally; adding, slowly: "When I tried to find out when he would call again, he seemed annoyed, and replied, curtly: 'That will be hard for me to determine, Miss Pendleton. You must remember that those in my profession have few leisure hours.' He would not set a time. I had to let the matter rest at that."

"He is not very much in love, then, I fear, my dear Sally," said her mother, reflectively. "Still, bad beginnings often make good endings. But I had almost forgotten to tell you the startling news, my dear," added Mrs. Pendleton, hastily. "Your aunt, Sally Rogers, is here. Louisa is entertaining her up in her boudoir. You must not be surprised, or show too much amusement when you see her. She is a sight. We would be eternally disgraced if the neighbors were to see her. She is fairly covered with rags—yes, rags! There are holes in her shoes; there never was such a bonnet worn since the time of the ark; and as for gloves, she disdains such an article of feminine attire altogether. I do not think one will have to wait long to come into possession of her fortune. But run up to your sister's room and greet old Miss Sally as affectionately as possible."

Sally was rather glad of this intelligence, for it prevented her from having a very bad case of the blues in thinking over her lover's coldness, and how irksome this betrothal was to him.

She found her sister doing her utmost to entertain the most grotesque little old woman she had ever beheld. Her mother's description had certainly not been overdrawn.

Sally felt like bursting into uproarious laughter the moment her eyes fell upon Miss Rogers, and it was only by a most superhuman effort she controlled herself from letting her rising mirth get the better of her.

"Dear me, is this, can this be jolly little Sally Pendleton, as you used to sign the merry letters you wrote to me?" asked Miss Rogers, stopping short in some remark she was making to Louisa, and gazing hard at the slender, girlish figure that had just appeared on the threshold.

"Yes, it is I, Sally Pendleton," responded the girl, coming quickly forward. "I just heard you were here, aunt, and I want to tell you how delighted, enraptured, overjoyed I am to see you," she added, throwing her arms around the bundle of rags which inclosed the thin little old maid, with a bear-like hug and any amount of extravagant kisses, not daring to look at Louisa the while.

"This is indeed a hearty welcome, my dear!" exclaimed Miss Rogers. "Stand off, child," she added, holding Sally at arm's-length, "until I get a good look at you."

And she gazed long and steadily.

Sally could not tell whether Miss Rogers was pleased or disappointed with her, as her face never expressed her emotions.

"I will call you and your sister my nieces; but you are not so nearly related to me as that—-the line of relationship is a long way off. There are many others as near to me as your family."

"But none who love you anywhere near as well," put in Sally, quickly.

"I hope you mean what you say," replied Miss Rogers, quietly; adding, after a moment's pause, during which she wiped a suspicious moisture from her eyes: "I am a very lonely woman, and life offers few charms for me, because I am quite alone in the world, with no one to care for me. I have often thought that I would give the whole world, if it were mine to give, for just one human being to whom I was dear. I am desolate; my heart hungers for sympathy and kindness, and—and a little affection. I have neither father nor mother, sister nor brother, husband nor children. I hope neither of you girls will ever experience the hopelessness, the heartache conveyed in those words. It is hard, bitterly cruel, to be left alone in the world. But I suppose Heaven intended it to be so, and—and knows best."

"You shall never know loneliness again, dear aunt," murmured Louisa. "To make every moment of your life happy will be our only aim."

"Thank you, my dear," replied Miss Rogers, tremulously.

"You shall live with us always, if you will, aunt," said Sally, "and be one of the family. You may have my boudoir all to yourself, and I will take the small spare room next to it."

"You are very good to me," said Miss Rogers, huskily.

Mrs. Pendleton had been busy getting the handsome guest-chamber ready for their wealthy kinswoman. She entered just in time to overhear Sally's last remark.

"Miss Rogers shall have a larger, handsomer boudoir than yours, Sally," remarked her mother. "The entire suite of rooms on this floor is at her disposal, if she will only allow us to persuade her to remain with us. My dear daughters, you must add your entreaties on this point to your father's and mine."

"How can I ever repay you for your deep interest in a lone body like me?" murmured Miss Rogers.

The eyes of the girls and those of their mother met; but they did not dare express in words the thought that had leaped simultaneously into their minds at her words.

"You have had no one to look after your wardrobe, dear Aunt Rogers," said Mrs. Pendleton; "so do, I beseech you, accept some of my gowns until you desire to lay them aside for fresher ones."

"I am bewildered by so much kindness," faltered Miss Rogers. And she was more bewildered still at the array of silks and satins and costly laces with which the three ladies deluged her.

The very finest rooms in the house were given her. Miss Sally made her a strong punch with her own hands, "just the way she said she liked it," and Louisa bathed her face in fragrant cologne, and tried on a lace night-cap with a great deal of fuss.

Some one came in to turn down the night-lamp a little later on—a quiet, slender figure in a dark-brown gown. It was not Mrs. Pendleton, nor was it either of her daughters.

"Who are you?" asked Miss Rogers, perceiving at a glance that she was evidently no servant of the household. A sweet, pale, wan face was turned toward her.

"I an Patience Pendleton," replied a still sweeter voice.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Rogers, "I never heard that there were three daughters in this family." She could see, even in that dim light, the pink flush steal quickly over the wan, white face.

"I am a daughter by my father's first marriage," she answered, quietly. "My step-mother and her daughters seldom mention me to any one."

There was no suspicion of malice in her tone, only sadness; and without another word, save a gentle good-night, she glided from the room.

It was Sally, bright, jolly Sally, who awakened Miss Rogers the next morning. Louisa insisted upon helping her to dress, while Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton tapped at the door, and eagerly inquired if she had rested well.

She was given the seat of honor at the breakfast-table, and a huge bouquet of hot-house roses lay at her plate.

Sally had inquired the night before as to her favorite viands, and they were soon placed before her deliciously prepared.

Louisa brought a dainty hassock for her feet, and Mrs. Pendleton a silken scarf, to protect her from the slightest draught from the open windows.

"You treat me as though I were a queen," said Miss Rogers, smiling through her tears.

She could scarcely eat her breakfast, Sally and Louisa hung about her chair so attentively, ready to anticipate her slightest wish. But looking around, she missed the sweet, wistful face that she had seen in her room the night before.

"Are all the family assembled here?" she inquired, wondering if it had not been a dream she had had of a sweet white face and a pair of sad gray eyes.

"All except Patience," replied Mrs. Pendleton, with a frown. "She's rather queer, and prefers not to join us at table or in the drawing-room. She spends all her time up in the attic bedroom reading the Bible and writing Christmas stories for children for the religious papers. We don't see her for weeks at a time, and actually forget she lives in this house. She's quite a religious crank, and you won't see much of her."

Miss Rogers saw the girls laugh and titter at their mother's remarks; and from that moment they lowered in her estimation, while sweet Patience was exalted.

CHAPTER XVII.

"But it would not be fair to let her make sister Sally her heiress," said Louisa, bitterly. "She ought not to get both fortunes. She will come into a magnificent fortune through marrying Jay Gardiner. Why should you want her to have Miss Rogers' money, too? You ought to influence that eccentric old lady to leave her fortune to me."

"Hush, my dear. Miss Rogers might hear you," warned her mother.

But the warning had come too late. In coming down the corridor to join the family in the general sitting-room, as they had always insisted on her doing, she had overheard Miss Louisa's last remark.

She stopped short, the happy light dying from her eyes, and the color leaving her cheeks.

"Great Heaven! have I been deceived, after all? Was the kindness of the Pendleton girls and their parents only assumed? Was there a monetary reason back of it all?" she mused.

A great pain shot through her heart; a wave of intense bitterness filled her soul.

"I will test these girls," muttered Miss Rogers, setting her lips together; "and that, too, before another hour passes over my head."

After a few moments more of deliberation, she arose, and with firm step passed slowly down the broad hall to the sitting-room.

Mrs. Pendleton and her eldest daughter Louisa had left the apartment. Sally alone was there, lounging on a divan, her hair in curl-papers, reading the latest French novel.

On her entering, down went the book, and Sally sprung up, her face wreathed in smiles.

"I was just wondering if you were lonely or taking a nap," she murmured, sweetly. "Do come right in, Miss Rogers, and let me draw the nicest easy-chair in the room up to the cool window for you and make you comfortable."

"How considerate you are, my dear child," replied Miss Rogers, fairly hating herself for believing this sweet young girl could dissemble. "I am glad to find you alone, Sally," she continued, dropping into the chair with a weary sigh. "I have been wanting to have a confidential little chat with you, my dear, ever since I have been here. Have you the time to spare?"

Sally Pendleton's blue eyes glittered. Of course Miss Rogers wanted to talk to her about leaving her money to her.

Sally brought a hassock, and placing it at her feet, sat down upon it, and rested her elbows on Miss Rogers' chair.

"Now," she said, with a tinkling little laugh that most every one liked to hear—the laugh that had given her the sobriquet, jolly Sally Pendleton, among her companions—an appellation which had ever since clung to her—"now I am ready to listen to whatever you have to tell me."

After a long pause, which seemed terribly irksome to Sally, Miss Rogers slowly said:

"I think I may as well break right into the subject that is on my mind, and troubling me greatly, without beating around the bush."

"That will certainly be the best way," murmured Sally.

"Well, then, my dear," said Miss Rogers, with harsh abruptness, "I am afraid I am living in this house under false colors."

Sally's blue eyes opened wide. She did not know what to say.

"The truth is, child, I am not the rich woman people credit me with being. I did not tell you that I had lost my entire fortune, and that I was reduced to penury and want—ay, I would have been reduced to starvation if you had not so kindly taken me in and done for me."

"What! You have lost your great fortune? You are penniless?" fairly shrieked Sally, springing to her feet and looking with amazement into the wrinkled face above her.

Miss Rogers nodded assent, inwardly asking Heaven to pardon her for this, her first deliberate falsehood.

"And you came here to us, got the best room in our house, and all of mamma's best clothes, and you a beggar!"

Miss Rogers fairly trembled under the storm of wrath she had evoked.

"I—I did not mention it when I first came, because I had somehow hoped you would care for me for myself, even though my money was gone, dear child."

A sneering, scornful laugh broke from Sally's lips, a glare hateful to behold flashed from her eyes.

"You have deceived us shamefully!" she cried. "How angry papa and mamma and Louisa will be to learn that we have been entertaining a pauper!"

"Perhaps you have been entertaining an angel unawares," murmured Miss Rogers.

"God forgive you, girl, for showing so little heart!" exclaimed Miss Rogers, rising slowly to her feet.

"I shall take no saucy remarks from you!" cried Sally, harshly. "Come, make haste! Take off those fine clothes, and be gone as fast as you can!"

"But I have nothing to put on," said Miss Rogers.

Sally instantly touched the bell, and when the maid came in response to her summons, she said, quickly:

"Bring me that bundle of clothes mamma laid out for you to give to the charity collector to-day."

Wonderingly the maid brought the bundle, and she wondered still more when Miss Sally ordered her to go down to the servants' hall, and not to come up until she was called for.

"Now, then," she cried, harshly, after the door had closed upon the maid, "get into these duds at once!"

Miss Rogers obeyed; and when at length the change was made, Sally pointed to the door and cried, shrilly:

"Now go!"

"But the storm!" persisted Miss Rogers, piteously. "Oh, Sally, at least let me stay until the storm has spent its fury!"

"Not an instant!" cried Sally Pendleton, fairly dragging her from the room and down the corridor to the main door, which she flung open, thrust her victim through it, and out into the storm.