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.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Miss Rogers noticed that Bernardine was strangely silent and preoccupied
during the remainder of that day; but she attached no particular
importance to it.

She knew that the girl was wearing her heart out in brooding over the
coming marriage. Jasper Wilde refused to be bought off, and Bernardine
herself declared that it must take place. _She, alas! knew why!_

Miss Rogers had done her best to persuade David Moore to take Bernardine
away--to Europe--ay, to the furthest end