ents that may mean life or
death to the one we both love. Let me plead with you, on my knees, if
need be, to come with me, dear."

Sally Gardiner stood at bay like a lioness. Quick as a flash, she had
thought out the situation.

If Jay Gardiner died, she would be free to fly with Victor Lament. If
she refused to allow the doctor to touch him, he would die, and never
discover the loss of the diamonds, or that she had borrowed money from
his friends on leaving Newport.

If he died, she would be a wealthy woman for life, and she would never
be obliged to look again into the face of the handsome husband whom she
hated--the husband who hated her, and who did not take the pains to
conceal it in his every act each day since he had married her.

Ah! if he only died here and now it would save her from all the ills
that menaced her and were closing in around her. This was her
opportunity. Fate--fortune had put the means of saving herself in her
hands.

Even the good doctor was sorely perplexed. He saw that young Mrs.
Gardiner was a desperate woman, and that she meant what she said.

"Will nothing under Heaven cause you to relent?" cried Margaret,
wringing her hands, her splendid courage breaking down completely under
the great strain of her agony. "My poor mother lies in the next room in
a death-like swoon, caused by the knowledge of her idolized son's fatal
illness. If he should die, she would never see another morning's sun
after she learned of it. One grave would cover both."

CHAPTER LI.

We must now return to Bernardine, dear reader.

"Oh, I was mad--mad to remain a single instant beneath this roof when I
discovered whose home it was!" she moaned, sinking down on the nearest
hassock and rocking herself to and fro in an agony of despair. "I--I
could have lived my life better if I had not looked upon his face again,
or seen the bride who had won his love from me. I will go, I will leave
this grand house at once. Let them feast and make merry. None of them
knows that a human heart so near them is breaking slowly under its load
of woe."

She tried to rise and cross the floor, but her limbs refused to act. A
terrible numbness had come over them, every muscle of her body seemed to
pain her.

"Am I going to be ill?" she cried out to herself in the wildest alarm.
"No, no--that _must not_ be; they would be sure to call upon _him_
to--to aid me, and that would kill me--yes, kill me!"

Her body seemed to burn li