om
him with quivering lips, and holding up her white hands as though to
ward him off. "You must not speak to me; indeed, you must not!"

"Why should I not tell you the secret that is eating my heart away!" he
cried, hoarsely.

Before he could add another word, she answered, quickly:

"Let me tell you why it is not right to listen to you, Doctor Gardiner.
I--I am the promised wife of Jasper Wilde!"

If she had struck him a blow with her little white hand he could not
have been more astounded.

His arms fell to his sides, and his face grew ashen pale.

"You are to marry Jasper Wilde?" he cried, hoarsely. "I can not believe
the evidence of my own senses, Bernardine!"

She did not answer, but stood before him with her beautiful head drooped
on her breast.

"You do not love him, Bernardine!" cried Jay Gardiner, bitterly. "Tell
me--answer me this--why are you to marry him?"

Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.

"If I should sue to you upon my bended knees to be mine, Bernardine,
would you not turn from him for me?"

He knew by the piteous sob that welled from the very depths of her heart
how deeply this question must have struck her.

"Bernardine," he cried, hoarsely, "if ever I read love in a girl's heart
when her eyes have met mine, I have read it in yours! You love me,
Bernardine. You can not, you dare not deny it. I repeat, if I were to
sue you on my bended knees, could you, would you refuse to be my wife?"

"I--must--marry--Jasper Wilde," she whispered, wretchedly.

Without another word, stung by pride and pain, Jay Gardiner turned from
the girl he had learned to love so madly, and hurried down the dark,
winding stairs, and out into the street.

For one moment poor Bernardine gazed at the open door-way through which
his retreating form had passed; then she flung herself down on her
knees, and wept as women weep but once in a life-time.

Wounded love, outraged pride, the sense of keen and bitter humiliation,
and yet of dread necessity, was strong upon her. And there was no help
for her, no comfort in those tears.

"Was ever a girl so wronged?" she moaned.

She wept until there seemed to be no tears left in those dark, mournful
eyes. As she lay there, like a pale, broken lily, with her head and
heart aching, she wondered, in her gentle way, why this sorrow should
have fallen upon her.

While she lay there, weeping her very heart out, Jay Gardiner was
walking down the street, his brain in a