ealize her great danger."
Bernardine drew down her dark veil, and waited until the people should
go away. She was dressed in dark clothes, and sat so silently she
attracted no particular attention; not even when she leaned over and
looked longingly into the eddying waves.
Two or three ships bound for foreign ports were anchored scarcely fifty
rods away. She could hear the songs and the laughter of the sailors. She
waited until these sounds had subsided.
The girl sitting close in the shadow of one of the huge posts was not
observed by the few stragglers strolling past.
One o'clock sounded from some far-off tower-clock; then the half hour
struck.
Bernardine rose slowly to her feet, and looked back at the lights of the
great city that she was leaving.
There would be no one to miss her; no one to weep over her untimely
fate; no one to grieve that she had taken the fatal step to eternity.
Her father would be glad that there was no one to follow his step by
night and by day, and plead with the wine-sellers to give him no more
drink. He would rejoice that he could follow his own will, and drink as
much as he pleased.
There was no dear old mother whose heart would break; no gentle sister
or brother who would never forget her; no husband to mourn for her; no
little child to hold out its hands to the blue sky, and cry to her to
come back. No one would miss her on the face of God's earth.
Alas! for poor Bernardine, how little she knew that at that very hour
the man whose love she craved most was wearing his very heart out for
love of her.
Bernardine took but one hurried glance backward; then, with a sobbing
cry, sprung over the pier, and into the dark, seething waters.
CHAPTER XXVII.
When Jay Gardiner left the city, he had expected to be gone a week,
possibly a fortnight; but, owing to an unexpected turn in the business
he was transacting, he was enabled to settle it in a day or so, and
return to the city.
It was by the merest chance that he took passage by boat instead of
going by rail; or, more truly speaking, there was a fate in it. The boat
was due at the wharf by midnight; but, owing to an unaccountable delay,
caused by the breaking of some machinery in the engine-room, it was
after one o'clock when the steamer touched the wharf.
Doctor Gardiner was not in such a hurry as the rest of the passengers
were, and he walked leisurely across the gang-plank, pausing, as he
reached the pier, to
|