"YOU ARE FALSE AS YOU ARE FAIR, BERNARDINE!"
"I should think your own common sense would tell you. Surely you must
have guessed what I am so eager to say, Miss Bernardine?" Jasper Wilde
began, taking little heed of her father.
The girl's white lips opened, but no sound came from them. He was right;
she quite expected it; but she did not tell him so.
"I might as well break right into the subject at once," he said. "My
errand can be told in a few words. I have fallen deeply in love with
your pretty face, and I am here to ask you to marry me. Mind, I say to
marry me! What do you think of it?"
The girl drew back hurriedly.
"I think you might have guessed what my answer would have been, and thus
saved yourself."
Again his face darkened, and an angry fire leaped into his eyes; but he
controlled himself by a great effort.
"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!