She was not to remain long in suspense.
"In the first place," began Sally, slowly, "I wish to know what your
relations are, Bernardine Moore, with Doctor Jay Gardiner. I must and
will know the truth."
She saw that the question struck the girl as lightning strikes a fair
white rose and withers and blights it with its awful fiery breath.
Bernardine was fairly stricken dumb. She opened her lips to speak, but
no sound issued from them. She could not have uttered one syllable if
her life had depended on it.
"Let me tell you how the case stands. I will utter the shameful truth
for you if you dare not admit it. He is _your lover_ in secret, though
he would deny you in public!"
Hapless Bernardine had borne all she could; and without a word, a cry,
or even a moan she threw up her little hands, and fell in a lifeless
heap at her cruel enemy's feet.
For a moment Sally Pendleton gazed at her victim, and thoughts worthy of
the brain of a fiend incarnate swept through her.
"If she were only dead!" she muttered, excitedly. "Dare I----"
The sentence was never finished. There was a step on the creaking stairs
outside, and with a guilty cry of alarm, Miss Pendleton rushed from the
room and out into the darkened hall-way.
She brushed past a woman on the narrow stairs, but the darkness was so
dense neither recognized the other; and Sally Pendleton had gained the
street and turned the nearest corner, ere Miss Rogers--for it was
she--reached the top landing.
As she pushed open the door, the first object that met her startled eyes
was Bernardine lying like one dead on the floor.
Despite the fact that she was an invalid, Miss Rogers' nerves were
exceedingly cool. She did not shriek out, or call excitedly to the other
inmates of the house, but went about reviving the girl by wetting her
handkerchief with water as cold as it would run from the faucet, and
laving her marble-cold face with it, and afterward rubbing her hands
briskly.
She was rewarded at length by seeing the great dark eyes slowly open,
and the crimson tide of life drift back to the pale, cold cheeks and
quivering lips.
A look of wonder filled Bernardine's eyes as she beheld Miss Rogers
bending over her.
"Was it a dream, some awful dream?" she said, excitedly, catching at her
friend's hands and clinging piteously to them.
"What caused your sudden illness, Bernardine?" questioned Miss Rogers,
earnestly. "You were apparently well when I left you an hour since."
Still Bernardine clung to her with that awful look of agony in her
beautiful eyes, but uttering no word.
"Has she gone?" she murmured, at length.
"Has _who_ gone?" questioned Miss Rogers, wondering what she meant.
"The beautiful, pitiless stranger," sobbed Bernardine, catching her
breath.
Miss Rogers believed that the girl's mind was wandering, and refrained
from further questioning her.
"The poor child is grieving so over this coming marriage of hers to
Jasper Wilde that I almost fear her mind is giving way," she thought, in
intense alarm, glancing at Bernardine.
As she did so, Bernardine began to sob again, breaking into such a
passionate fit of weeping, and suffering such apparently intense grief,
that Miss Rogers was at a loss what to do or say.
She would not tell why she was weeping so bitterly; no amount of
questioning could elicit from her what had happened.
Not for worlds would Bernardine have told to any human being her sad
story--of the stranger's visit and the startling disclosures she had
made to her.
It was not until Bernardine found herself locked securely in the
seclusion of her own room that she dared look the matter fully in the
face, and then the grief to which she abandoned herself was more
poignant than before.
In her great grief, a terrible thought came to her. Why not end it all?
Surely God would forgive her for laying down life's cross when it was
too heavy to be borne.
Yes, that is what she would do. She would end it all.
Her father did not care for her; it caused him no grief to barter her,
as the price of his secret, to Jasper Wilde, whom she loathed.
It lacked but one day to that marriage she so detested.
Yes, she would end it all before the morrow's sun rose.