I will show you to your room after you have had some tea."

The housekeeper was right in her surmise. It did look like an inexpressibly dreary place when Bernardine looked about at the great arched hall.

Grand old paintings, a century old, judging by their antiquated look, hung upon the walls. A huge clock stood in one corner, and on either side of it there were huge elk heads, with spreading antlers tipped with solid gold.

To add to the strangeness of the place, a bright log fire burned in a huge open fire-place, which furnished both light and heat to the main corridor.

"This fire is never allowed to burn out, either in summer or winter,"

the housekeeper explained, "because the great hall is so cold and gloomy without it."

While Bernardine was drinking her tea, a message came to her that Mrs.

Gardiner would see her in her _boudoir_.

The housekeeper led the way through a long corridor, and when she reached the further end of it, she turned toward the right, and drawing aside the heavy crimson velvet _portieres_, Bernardine was ushered into a magnificent apartment.

The windows were of stained gla.s.s, ornamented with rare pictures, revealed by the light shining through them from an inner room; the chandeliers, with their crimson globes, gave a deep red glow to the handsome furnishings and costly bric-a-brac. There was something about the room that reminded Bernardine of the pictures her imagination had drawn of Oriental _boudoirs_.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of a haughty voice saying:

"Are _you_ Miss Bernardine Moore?"

By this time Bernardine's eyes had become accustomed to the dim, uncertain light. Turning her head in the direction whence the sound proceeded, she saw a very grand lady, dressed in stiff, shining brocade satin, with rare lace and sparkling diamonds on her breast and fair hands, sitting in a crimson velvet arm-chair--a grand old lady, cold, haughty, and unbending.

"Yes, madame," replied Bernardine, in a sweet, low voice, "I am Miss Moore."

"You are a very much younger person than I supposed you to be from your letter, Miss Moore. Scarcely more than a child, I should say," she added, as she motioned Bernardine to a seat with a wave of the hand. "I will speak plainly," she went on, slowly. "I am disappointed. I imagined you to be a young lady of uncertain age--say, thirty or thirty-five.

When a woman reaches that age, and has found no one to marry her, there is a chance of her becoming reconciled to her fate. I want a companion with whom I can feel secure. I do not want any trouble with love or lovers, above all. I would not like to get used to a companion, and have her leave me for some man. In fine, you see, I want one who will put all thought of love or marriage from her."

Bernardine held out her clasped hands.

"You need have no fear on that score, dear madame," she replied in a trembling tone. "I shall never love--I shall never marry. I--I never want to behold the face of a man. Please believe me and trust me."

"Since you are here, I may as well take you on trial," replied the grand old lady, resignedly. "Now you may go to your room, Miss Moore. You will come to me here at nine to-morrow morning," she said, dismissing Bernardine with a haughty nod.

The housekeeper had said she would find the room that had been prepared for her at the extreme end of the same corridor, and in groping her way to it in the dim, rose-colored light which pervaded the outer hall, she unconsciously turned in the wrong direction, and went to the right instead of the left.

The door stood ajar, and thinking the housekeeper had left it in this way for her, Bernardine pushed it open.

To her great astonishment, she found herself in a beautifully furnished sleeping apartment, upholstered in white and gold of the costliest description, and flooded by a radiance of brilliant light from a grand chandelier overhead.

But it was not the magnificent hangings, or the long mirrors, in their heavy gilt frames, that caught and held the girl's startled gaze.

It was a full-length portrait hanging over the marble mantle, and it startled her so that she uttered a low cry, and clasped her little hands together as children do when uttering a prayer.

Her reverie lasted only for a moment. Then she drifted back to the present. She was in this strange house as a companion, and the first thing she came across was the portrait, as natural as life itself, of--Jay Gardiner!

A mad desire came over her to kneel before the picture and--die!

CHAPTER XLIV.

Bernardine did not have much time to study the portrait, for all of a sudden she heard footsteps in the corridor without, and in another moment Mrs. King, the housekeeper, had crossed the threshold, and approached her excitedly.

"I feared you would be apt to make this mistake," she said, breathlessly. "Your room is in the opposite direction, Miss Moore."

Bernardine was about to turn away with a few words of apology, but the housekeeper laid a detaining hand on her arm.

"Do not say that you found your way into this apartment, Miss Moore,"

she said, "or it might cause me considerable trouble. This is the only room in the house that is opened but once a year, and only then to air it.

"This is young master's room," went on the housekeeper, confidentially, "and when he left home, after quite a bitter scene with his mother, the key was turned in the lock, and we were all forbidden to open it. That is young master's portrait, and an excellent likeness it is of him, too.

"The whole house was recently thrown into consternation by a letter being received from him, saying that he was about to bring home his bride. His mother and sister took his marriage very much to heart. The bride is beautiful, we hear; but, as is quite natural, I suppose his mother thinks a queen on her throne would have been none too good for her handsome son.

"My lady has had very little to say since learning that he would be here on the 20th--that is to-morrow night; and his sister, Miss Margaret, is equally as silent.

"I think it will be better to give you another room than the one I had at first intended," said Mrs. King. "Please follow me, and I will conduct you to it."

Bernardine complied, though the desire was strong upon her to fly precipitately from the house, and out into the darkness of the night---anywhere--anywhere, so that she might escape meeting Jay Gardiner and his bride.

Up several flights of carpeted polished stairs, through draughty pa.s.sages, along a broad corridor, down another pa.s.sage, then into a huge, gloomy room, Bernardine followed her, a war of conflicting emotions surging through her heart at every step.

"You have plenty of room, you see," said the housekeeper, lighting the one gas-jet the apartment contained.

"Plenty!" echoed Bernardine, aghast, glancing about her in dismay at the huge, dark, four-poster bed in a far-off corner, the dark dresser, which seemed to melt into the shadows, and the three darkly outlined windows, with their heavy draperies closely drawn, that frowned down upon her.

"You must not be frightened if you hear odd noises in the night. It's only mice. This is the old part of the mansion," said the housekeeper, turning to go.

"Am I near any one else?" asked Bernardine, her heart sinking with a strange foreboding which she could not shake off.

"Not very near," answered the housekeeper.

"Would no one hear me if I screamed?" whispered Bernardine, drawing closer to her companion, as though she would detain her, her frightened eyes burning like two great coals of fire.

"I hope you will not make the experiment, Miss Moore," returned the housekeeper, impatiently. "Good-night," and with that she is gone, and Bernardine is left--alone.

The girl stands quite still where the housekeeper has left her long after the echo of her footsteps has died away.

She is in _his_ home, and he is coming here with his bride! Great G.o.d!

what irony of fate led her here?

Her bonnet and cloak are over her arm.

"Shall I don them, and fly from this place?" she asks herself over and over again.

But her tired limbs begin to ache, every nerve in her body begins to twitch, and she realizes that her tired nature has endured all it can.