CHAPTER XIV.

"HAVE I BROKEN YOUR HEART, MY DARLING?"

Bernardine Moore slowly untwined her white arms from about her father's neck, and turned her white, anguished face toward him, and the awful despair that lay in the dark eyes that met his was more piteous than any words could have been.

"Have I broken your heart, Bernardine?" he cried out. "Oh, my child, my beautiful Bernardine, have I ruined your life by that fatal promise?"

She tried to speak, but no words fell from her white lips; it seemed to her that she would never speak again; that the power of speech had suddenly left her.

"My poor old life is not worth such a sacrifice, Bernardine!" he cried out, sharply; "and you shall not make it. I will put a drop of something I know of in a cup of coffee, and then it will be all over with me. He can not pursue me through the dark gates of death."

"No, no," said the girl, great, heavy tears--a blessed relief--falling from her eyes like rain. "Your life is more precious to me than all the world beside. I would take your place on the gallows and die for you, father. Oh, believe me!--believe me!"

"And you feel in your heart the truth of what I say--that I am innocent, Bernardine?" he cried. "Say you believe me."

"I would stake my life on your innocence, father," she replied, through her tears. "I believe in you as I do in Heaven. You shall not die! I will save you, father. I--I--will--marry Jasper Wilde, if that will save you!"

She spoke the words clearly, bravely. Her father did not realize that they nearly cost her her life--that they dug a grave long and deep, in which her hopes and rosy day-dreams were to be buried.

"You have saved me, Bernardine!" he cried, joyously. "Oh, how you must love me--poor, old, and helpless as I am!"

She answered him with kisses and tears; she could not trust herself to speak.

She rose abruptly from her knees, and quitted the room with unsteady steps.

"Thank Heaven it is over!" muttered David Moore, with a sigh.

"Bernardine has consented, and I am saved!"

The day that followed was surely the darkest sweet Bernardine Moore had ever known. But it came to an end at last, and with the evening came Jay Gardiner.

He knew as soon as he greeted Bernardine and her father that something out of the usual order had transpired, the old basket-maker greeted him so stiffly, Bernardine so constrainedly.

Bernardine's manner was quite as sweet and kind, but she did not hold out to him the little hand which it was heaven on earth to him to clasp even for one brief instant.

Looking at her closely, he saw that her beautiful dark eyes were heavy and swollen with weeping.

"Poor child! She is continually grieving over the drinking habit of her father," he thought; and the bitterest anger rose up in his heart against the old basket-maker for bringing a tear to those beautiful dark eyes.

Again the longing came to him to beat down all barriers that parted her from him, take Bernardine in his arms, and crying out how madly he loved her, bear his beautiful love away as his idolized bride to his own palatial home. But the thought of that other one, to whom he was in honor and in duty bound, kept him silent.

He realized that for his own peace of mind and hers he must never see Bernardine again; that this must be the last time.

"I am sorry your father has fallen asleep, yet I do not wish to waken him, for I have come to say farewell to him and to you, Miss Moore," he said, huskily.

He saw the lovely face grow as white as a snow-drop; he saw all the glad light leave the great dark eyes; he saw the beautiful lips pale and the little hands tremble, and the sight was almost more than he could endure, for he read by these signs that which he had guessed before--that the sweet, fond, tender heart of Bernardine had gone out to him as his had gone out to her.

"Are you sorry, my poor girl?" he asked, brokenly.

"Yes," she answered, not attempting to stay her bitter tears, "I shall miss you. Life will never be the same to me again."

He stopped before her, and caught her pa.s.sionately to him.

"Dear Heaven, help me to say good-bye to you!" he cried; "for you must realize the truth, Bernardine. I love you--oh, I love you with all the strength of my heart and soul! Yet we must part!"

CHAPTER XV.

"I LOVE YOU! I CAN NOT KEEP THE SECRET ANY LONGER!"

For a moment Bernardine rested in his arms while Jay Gardiner cried over and over again, reckless as to how it would end:

"Yes, I love you, Bernardine, with all my heart, with all my soul!"

But it was for a moment only; then the girl struggled out of the strong arms that infolded her, with the expression of a startled fawn in her dark, humid eyes.

"Oh, Doctor Gardiner, don't; please don't!" she gasped, shrinking from 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, hoa.r.s.ely.

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, hoa.r.s.ely. "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, hoa.r.s.ely, "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.