isappearance."

Doctor Gardiner clasped her little hands still closer. The time had come
when he must break the awful news to her that her father was no longer
in Jasper Wilde's power; that he had passed beyond all fear of him, all
fear of punishment at the hand of man.

"Are you strong enough to bear a great shock, Bernardine?" he whispered,
involuntarily gathering the slender figure to him.

The girl grew pale as death.

"Is it something about father? Has anything happened to him?" she
faltered, catching her breath.

He nodded his head; then slowly, very gently, he told her of the fire,
and that he had seen her father perish--that he was now forever beyond
Jasper Wilde's power.

Poor Bernardine listened like one turned to stone: then, without a word
or a cry, fell at his feet in a faint.

At that opportune moment the old nurse returned.

Doctor Gardiner soon restored her to consciousness; but it made his
heart bleed to witness her intense grief. She begged him to take her to
the ruins, and with great reluctance he consented.

Ordering a cab at the nearest stand, he placed her in it, and took a
seat by her side, feeling a vague uneasiness, a consciousness that this
ride should never have been taken.

She was trembling like a leaf. What could he do but place his strong arm
about her? In that moment, in the happiness of being near her, he forgot
that he was in honor bound to another, and that other Sally Pendleton,
whom he was so soon to lead to the altar to make his wife.

The girl he loved with all the strength of his heart was so near to
him--ah, Heaven! so dangerously near--the breath from her lips was
wafted to him with each passing breeze, and seemed to steal his very
senses from him.

Oh, if he could but indulge in one moment of happiness--could clasp her
in his arms but a single moment, and kiss those trembling lips just
once, he would be willing to pay for it by a whole life-time of sorrow,
he told himself.

Ah! why must he refuse himself so resolutely this one draught of
pleasure that fate had cast in his way?

He hesitated, and we all know what happens to the man who hesitates--he
is lost.

At this moment Bernardine turned to him, sobbing piteously:

"Oh, what shall I do, Doctor Gardiner? Father's death leaves me all
alone in the world--all alone, with no one to love me!"

In an instant he forgot prudence, restraint; he only knew that his
heart, ay, his very soul, flowed out to her in a t