ton. Accordingly, she was sent for with all possible haste.

A servant bearing a message for Sally entered the room.

The girl's hands trembled. She tore the envelope open quickly, and as
her eyes traveled over the contents of the note, she gave a loud scream.

"Jay Gardiner has met with an accident, and I am sent for. Ah! that is
why I have not heard from him for a week, mamma!" she exclaimed,
excitedly.

"I will go with you, my dear," declared her mother. "It wouldn't be
proper for you to go alone. Make your toilet at once."

To the messenger's annoyance, the young lady he was sent for kept him
waiting nearly an hour, and he was startled, a little later, to see the
vision of blonde loveliness that came hurrying down the broad stone
steps in the wake of her mother.

"Beautiful, but she has no heart," was his mental opinion. "Very few
girls would have waited an hour, knowing their lover lay at the point of
death. But it's none of my business, though I _do_ wish noble young
Doctor Gardiner had made a better selection for a wife."

The cab whirled rapidly on, and soon reached Doctor Gardiner's office.

Sally looked a little frightened, and turned pale under her rouge when
she saw the group of grave-faced physicians evidently awaiting her
arrival.

"Our patient has recovered consciousness," said one of them, taking her
by the hand and leading her forward. "He is begging pitifully to see
some one--of course, it must be yourself--some one who is waiting for
him."

"Of course," repeated Sally. "There is no one he would be so interested
in seeing as myself."

And quite alone, she entered the inner apartment where Jay Gardiner lay
hovering between life and death.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The room into which Sally Pendleton was ushered was so dimly lighted
that she was obliged to take the second glance about ere she could
distinguish where the couch was on which Jay Gardiner lay. The next
moment she was bending over him, crying and lamenting so loudly that the
doctors waiting outside were obliged to go to her and tell her that this
outburst might prove fatal to their patient in that critical hour.

Jay Gardiner was looking up at her with dazed eyes. He recognized her,
uttered her name.

"Was it to-night that I left your house, after settling when the
marriage was to take place?" he asked.

Miss Pendleton humored the idea by answering "Yes," instead of telling
him that the visit he referred to had taken place