"HAVE I BROKEN YOUR HEART, MY DARLING?"
Bernardine Moore slowly untwined her white arms from about her father's
neck, and turned her white, anguished face toward him, and the awful
despair that lay in the dark eyes that met his was more piteous than any
words could have been.
"Have I broken your heart, Bernardine?" he cried out. "Oh, my child, my
beautiful Bernardine, have I ruined your life by that fatal promise?"
She tried to speak, but no words fell from her white lips; it seemed to
her that she would never speak again; that the power of speech had
suddenly left her.
"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!"