to her _boudoir_. Follow me, Miss Moore."

She reached Mrs. Gardiner's _boudoir_ before she was aware of it, so
intent were her thoughts. That lady was sitting at a small marble table,
sipping a cup of very fragrant coffee. A small, very odorous broiled
bird lay on a square of browned toast on a silver plate before her. She
pushed it aside as Bernardine entered.

"Good-morning, Miss Moore," she said, showing a trifle more kindliness
than she had exhibited on the previous evening; "I hope you rested well
last night. Sit down."

Bernardine complied; but before she could answer these commonplace,
courteous remarks, an inner door opened, and a lady, neither very young
nor very old, entered the room.

"Good-morning, mamma," she said; and by that remark Bernardine knew that
this was Jay's sister.

She almost devoured her with eager eyes, trying to trace a resemblance
in her features to her handsome brother.

"Margaret, this is my new companion, Miss Moore," said Mrs. Gardiner,
languidly.

Bernardine blushed to the roots of her dark hair, as two dark-blue eyes,
so like Jay's, looked into her own.

"Welcome to Gardiner Castle, Miss Moore," replied Margaret Gardiner.

She did not hold out her hand, but she looked into the startled young
face with a kindly smile and a nod. Whatever her thoughts were in regard
to her mother's companion, they were not expressed in her face.

A score of times during the half hour that followed, Bernardine tried to
find courage to tell Mrs. Gardiner that she must go away; that she could
not live under that roof and meet the man she loved, and who was to
bring home a bride.

But each time the words died away on her lips. Then suddenly, she could
not tell how or when the feeling entered her heart, the longing came to
her to look upon the face of the young girl who had gained the love she
would have given her very life--ay, her hope of heaven--to have
retained.

CHAPTER XLV.

To sit quietly by and hear mother and daughter discuss the man she
loved, was as hard for Bernardine to endure as the pangs of death.

"He is sure to be a worshipful husband," said Miss Margaret. "I always
said love would be a grand passion with Jay. He will love once, and that
will be forever, and to his wife he will be always true."

Poor, hapless Bernardine could have cried aloud as she listened. What
would that proud lady-mother and that haughty sister say if they but
knew how he had tricked her into