driver to halt at the Pendleton mansion,
and looking out of the window, he had seen with amazement the whole
occurrence--had seen Sally Pendleton, who had always posed before him as
a sweet-tempered angel--actually thrust a feeble-looking, poorly-dressed
woman out of the house and into the street to face a storm so wild and
pitiless that most people would have hesitated before even turning a
homeless, wandering cur out into it.
Doctor Gardiner's carriage drew up quickly before the curbstone, and as
he sprung from the vehicle, his astonishment can better be imagined than
described at finding himself face to face with his friend, Miss Rogers,
and that it was she who had been ejected so summarily. The poor soul
almost fainted for joy when she beheld the young physician.
"My dear Miss Rogers!" he cried in amazement, "what in the name of
Heaven does the scene I have just witnessed mean?"
"Take me into your carriage, and drive down the street; that is, if you
are not in a hurry to make a professional call."
Jay Gardiner lifted the drenched, trembling woman in his strong arms,
placed her in the vehicle, took his seat beside her, and the brougham
rolled down the avenue.
Clinging to his strong young arm, Miss Rogers told, between her smiles
and tears, all that had taken place--of the test which she had put the
Pendletons to before leaving her money to the girl Sally, who had been
named after her; of its disastrous ending when she told Sally she was
poor instead of rich; of the abuse the girl had heaped upon her, which
ended by throwing her into the street.
She told all, keeping back nothing, little dreaming that Jay Gardiner
knew the Pendletons, and, least of all, that Sally was his betrothed.
He listened with darkening brow, his stern lips set, his handsome,
jovial, laughing face strangely white.
What could he say to her? He dared not give vent to his bitter thoughts,
and denounce the girl he was in honor bound to give his name and shield
from all the world's remarks.
"You have learned your lesson, Miss Rogers," he said, slowly. "Now be
content to return to your own luxurious home and its comforts, a sadder
and wiser woman."
"I have not tested _all_ yet," she returned. "There is yet another
family, whose address I have recently discovered after the most patient
search. I had a cousin by marriage who ran off with a sea-captain. She
died, leaving one child, a little daughter. The father no longer follows
th
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