Kind hands raised her, placed her on the couch, and administered to her; but when at length the dark eyes opened, there was no glance of recognition in them, and the matron knew, even before she called the doctor, that she had a case of brain fever before her.

This indeed proved to be a fact, and it was many a long week ere a knowledge of events transpiring around her came to Bernardine.

During the interim, dear reader, we will follow the fortunes of Jay Gardiner, the young husband for whom Bernardine had watched and waited in vain.

When he was picked up unconscious after the collision, he was recognized by some of the pa.s.sengers and conveyed to his own office.

It seemed that he had sustained a serious scalp-wound and the doctors who had been called in consultation looked anxiously into each other's faces.

"A delicate operation will be necessary," said the most experienced physician, "and whether it will result in life or death, I can not say."

They recommended that his relatives, if he had any, be sent for. It was soon ascertained that his mother and sister were in Europe, traveling about the Continent. The next person equally, if indeed not more interested, was the young lady he was betrothed to marry--Miss Pendleton. 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 n.o.ble 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 x.x.xIII.

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 several weeks before.

"To-day was to have been our wedding-day," she sobbed, "and now you are ill--very ill. But, Jay," she whispered, bending down and uttering the words rapidly in his ear, "it could take place just the same, here and now, if you are willing. I sent a note to a minister to come here, and he may arrive at any moment. When he comes, shall I speak to him about it?"

He did not answer; he was trying to remember something, trying, oh, so hard, to remember something that lay like a weight on his mind.

Heaven help him! the past was entirely blotted out of his memory!

He recollected leaving Miss Pendleton's house after setting the date for his marriage with her, but beyond that evening the world was a blank to him.

He never remembered that there were such people as David Moore, the basket-maker, and a beautiful girl, his daughter Bernardine, to whom he had lost his heart, and whom he had wedded, and that she was now waiting for him. His mind was to be a blank upon all that for many a day to come.

"What do you say, Jay?" repeated Miss Pendleton; "will not the ceremony take place to-day, as we had intended?"

"They tell me I am very ill, Sally," he whispered. "I--I may be dying.

Do you wish the ceremony to take place in the face of that fact?"

"Yes," she persisted. "I want you to keep your solemn vow that you would make me your wife; and--and delays are dangerous."

"Then it shall be as you wish," he murmured, faintly, in an almost inaudible voice, the effort to speak being so great as to cause him to almost lose consciousness.

Sally stepped quickly from Jay's beside out into the adjoining room.

"Mr. Gardiner wishes our marriage to take place here and now," she announced. "A minister will be here directly. When he arrives, please show him to Doctor Gardiner's bedside."

Mamma Pendleton smiled and nodded her approval in a magnificent way as she caught her daughter's eye for a second. The doctors looked at one another in alarm.

"I do not see how it can take place just now, Miss Pendleton," said one, quietly. "We have a very dangerous and difficult operation to perform upon your betrothed, and each moment it is delayed reduces his chance of recovery. We must put him under chloroform without an instant's delay."

"And I say that it shall not be done until after the marriage ceremony has been performed," declared Sally, furiously; adding, spitefully: "You want to cheat me out of becoming Jay Gardiner's wife. But I defy you!

you can not do it! He _shall_ marry me, in spite of you all!"

At that moment there was a commotion outside. The minister had arrived.

Sally herself rushed forward to meet him ere the doctors could have an opportunity to exchange a word with him, and conducted him at once to the sick man's bedside, explaining that her lover had met with an accident, and that he wished to be married to her without a moment's delay.

"I shall be only too pleased to serve you both," replied the good man.

"You must make haste, sir," urged Miss Pendleton sharply. "See, he is beginning to sink."

The minister did make haste. Never before were those solemn words so rapidly uttered.

How strange it was that fate should have let that ceremony go on to the end which would spread ruin and desolation before it!

The last words were uttered. The minister of G.o.d slowly but solemnly p.r.o.nounced Sally Pendleton Jay Gardiner's lawfully wedded wife.

The doctors did not congratulate the bride, but sprung to the a.s.sistance of the young physician, who had fallen back upon his pillow gasping for breath.

One held a sponge saturated with a strong liquid to his nostrils, while another escorted the minister, the bride, and her mother from the apartment.