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Updated: June 25, 2025
"You can sleep on as comfortably as you like now, my innocent little fool!" she muttered. "Good-night, and good-bye to you." Hastily donning Bernardine's jacket and hat, the girl stole noiselessly from the room, closing the door softly after her.
The name fairly took Bernardine's breath away, for it was the name bestowed upon her by the young man who had wedded and deserted her within an hour. The very sight of it made her heart grow sick and faint. Still, it held a strange fascination for her.
Bernardine had almost cried herself ill by the time Jasper Wilde's knock was heard on the door. Mr. Moore answered the summons. "Is there any use in my coming in?" asked Wilde, grimly, coming to a halt on the threshold. "Does your daughter consent to marry me? I could not make head or tail out of your letter." "Bernardine's answer is yes," murmured the old man, almost incoherently.
It went straight to her lonely heart, because she knew it was genuine friendship untainted by mercenary motives. She shared Bernardine's humble yet dainty apartment, and fell quite naturally into being a member of the household. There was one thing which puzzled her greatly, and that was, the sighs that would rend sweet Bernardine's breast while she was sleeping.
"Ah, ha!" she muttered at length under her breath, "she sleeps sound enough now." She laid her hand heavily on Bernardine's breast. The gentle breathing did not abate, and with a slow movement the hand slid down to the pocket of her dress, fumbled about the folds for a moment, then reappeared, tightly clutching the well-filled wallet.
A draught of wind blew it open as she approached. As she reached the threshold, Bernardine stood rooted to the spot at the spectacle that met her gaze. Young Mrs. Gardiner was bending over her hapless husband with a face so transformed by hate yes, hate there was no mistaking the expression that it nearly took Bernardine's breath away.
He knew as soon as he greeted Bernardine and her father that something out of the usual order had transpired, the old basket-maker greeted him so stiffly, Bernardine so constrainedly. Bernardine's manner was quite as sweet and kind, but she did not hold out to him the little hand which it was heaven on earth to him to clasp even for one brief instant.
He stood face to face with this one fact that wealth, grandeur, anything that earth could give him, was of little value unless he had the love of sweet Bernardine. It came upon him suddenly that the sweet witchery, the glamor falling over him was love. He realized that he lived only in Bernardine's presence, and that without her life would be but a blank to him.
So she said no more to her on the subject just then; but when she approached David Moore on this topic, his incoherent replies puzzled her still more. "I am much obliged to you for taking such an interest in Bernardine's affairs; but let me warn you of one thing, Miss Rogers, while you are under my roof, don't attempt to meddle with what does not concern you in any way.
I I can listen to you then." And with these words, the fiery creature left the room, staggering rather than walking through the open French window. The doctor caught Bernardine's hand in his. "If he lives, it will be to your strategy that he owes his life," he said, hurriedly. "Now leave the room quickly.
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