thought flashed
through his mind that this was certainly the man whom the woman on the
doorstep had told him about.

Jasper Wilde, looking at the young doctor, summed him up as a proud,
white-handed, would-be doctor who hadn't a cent in his pocket.

"I can see what the attraction is here--it's Bernardine; but I'll block
his little game," he muttered. "The few weeks that I've been out of the
city he has been making great headway; but I'll stop that."

The young doctor noticed that what the woman had told him was quite
true. He could readily see that Bernardine showed a feeling of
repugnance toward her visitor.

But another thing he noticed with much anxiety was, that the old
basket-maker was quite hilarious, as though he had been dosed with wine
or something stronger.

Jay Gardiner knew at once that this man must have known the
basket-maker's failing and slipped him a bottle, and that that was his
passport to favor.

Doctor Gardiner talked with David Moore and his daughter, addressing no
remarks whatever to the obnoxious visitor.

"The impudent popinjay is trying to phase me," thought Wilde; "but he
will see that it won't work."

Accordingly he broke into every topic that was introduced; and thus the
evening wore on, until it became quite evident to Doctor Gardiner that
Mr. Jasper Wilde intended to sit him out.

Bernardine looked just a trifle weary when the clock on the mantel
struck ten, and Doctor Gardiner rose to depart.

"Shall I hold the light for you?" she asked. "The stair-way is always
very dark."

"If you will be so kind," murmured the doctor.

Jasper Wilde's face darkened as he listened to this conversation. His
eyes flashed fire as they both disappeared through the door-way.

On the landing outside Doctor Gardiner paused a few moments.

How he longed to give her a few words of advice, to tell her to beware
of the man whom he had just left talking to her father! But he
remembered that he had not that right. She might think him presumptuous.

If he had only been free, he would have pleaded his own suit then and
there. That she was poor and unknown, and the daughter of such a father,
he cared nothing.

Ah! cruel fate, which forbid him taking her in his arms and never
letting her go until she had promised to be his wife!

As it was, knowing that he loved her with such a mighty love, he told
himself that he must look upon her face but once again, and then it
must be only to say farewell.