Jolly Sally Pendleton Part 17

All the long nights through Bernardine would weep and moan and wring her little white hands. When Miss Rogers attempted to expostulate with her, declaring no one could compel her to marry Jasper Wilde against her will, she would only shake her head and cry the more bitterly, moaning out that she did not understand.

"I confess, Bernardine, I do not understand you," she declared, anxiously. "You will not try to help yourself, but are going willingly, like a lamb to the slaughter, as it were."

David Moore seemed to be as unnerved as Bernardine over the coming marriage. If he heard a sound in Bernardine's room at night, he would come quickly to her door and ask if anything was the matter. He seemed to be always awake, watching, listening for something. The next day he would say to Miss Rogers:

"I was sorely afraid something was happening to Bernardine last night--that she was attempting to commit suicide, or something of that kind. A girl in her highly nervous state of mind will bear watching."

"Your fears on that score are needless," replied Miss Rogers. "No matter whatever else Bernardine might do, she would never think of taking her life into her own hands, I a.s.sure you."

But the old basket-maker was not so sure of that. He had a strange presentiment of coming evil which he could not shake off.

Each evening, according to his declared intention, Jasper Wilde presented himself at David Moore's door.

"There's nothing like getting my bride-to-be a little used to me," he declared to her father, with a grim laugh.

Once after Jasper Wilde had bid Bernardine and her father good-night, he walked along the street, little caring in which direction he went, his mind was so preoccupied with trying to solve the problem of how to make this haughty girl care for him.

His mental query was answered in the strangest manner possible.

Almost from out the very bowels of the earth, it seemed--for certainly an instant before no human being was about--a woman suddenly appeared and confronted him--a woman so strange, uncanny, and weird-looking, that she seemed like some supernatural creature.

"Would you like to have your fortune told, my bonny sir?" she queried in a shrill voice. "I bring absent ones together, tell you how to gain the love of the one you want----"

"You do, eh?" cut in Jasper Wilde, sharply. "Well, now, if you can do anything like that, you ought to have been able to have retired, worth your millions, long ago, with people coming from all over the world to get a word of advice from you."

"I care nothing for paltry money," replied the old woman, scornfully. "I like to do all the good I can."

"Oh, you work for nothing, then? Good enough. You shall tell me my fortune, and how to win the love of the girl I care for. It will be cheap advice enough, since it comes free."

"I have to ask a little money," responded the old dame in a wheedling tone. "I can't live on air, you know. But let me tell you, sir, there's something I could tell you that you ought to know--you have a rival for the love of the girl you want. Look sharp, or you'll lose her."

"By the Lord Harry! how did you find out all that?" gasped Jasper Wilde, in great amazement, his eyes staring hard, and his hands held out, as though to ward her off.

She laughed a harsh little laugh.

"That is not all I could tell if I wanted to, my bonny gentleman. You ought to know what is going on around you. I only charge a dollar to ladies and two dollars to gents. My place is close by. Will you come and let me read your future, sir?"

"Yes," returned Jasper Wilde. "But, hark you, if it is some thieves' den you want to entice me to, in order to rob me, I'll tell you here and now you will have a mighty hard customer to tackle, as I always travel armed to the teeth."

"The bonny gentleman need not fear the old gypsy," returned the woman, with convincing dignity.

Turning, he walked beside her to the end of the block.

She paused before a tall, dark tenement house, up whose narrow stair-way she proceeded to climb after stopping a moment to gather sufficient breath.

Jasper Wilde soon found himself ushered into a rather large room, which was draped entirely in black cloth hangings and decorated with mystic symbols of the sorceress's art.

An oil lamp, suspended by a wire from the ceiling, furnished all the light the apartment could boast of.

"Sit down," said the woman, pointing to an arm-chair on the opposite side of a black-draped table.

Jasper Wilde took the seat indicated, and awaited developments.

"I tell by cards," the woman said, producing a box of black pasteboards, upon which were printed strange hieroglyphics.

It was almost an hour before Jasper Wilde took his departure from the wizard's abode, and when he did so, it was with a strangely darkened brow.

He looked fixedly at a small vial he held in his hand as he reached the nearest street lamp, and eyed with much curiosity the dark liquid it contained.

"I would do anything on earth to gain Bernardine's love," he muttered; "and for that reason I am willing to try anything that promises success in my wooing. I have never believed in fortune-tellers, and if this one proves false, I'll be down on the lot of 'em for all time to come. Five drops in a gla.s.s of water or a cup of tea."

CHAPTER XXII.

While the preparations for the marriage which poor, hapless Bernardine looked forward to with so much fear went steadily on, preparations for another wedding, in which Jay Gardiner was to be the unwilling bridegroom, progressed quite as rapidly.

On the day following the scene in which Sally Pendleton had turned Miss Rogers from the house--which had been witnessed by the indignant young doctor--he called upon his betrothed, hoping against hope that she might be induced to relent, even at the eleventh hour, and let him off from this, to him, abhorrent engagement.

He found Sally arrayed in her prettiest dress--all fluffy lace and fluttering baby-blue ribbons--but he had no eyes for her made-up, doll-like sort of beauty.

She never knew just when to expect him, for he would never give her the satisfaction of making an appointment to call, giving professional duties as an excuse for not doing so.

Sally arrayed herself in her best every evening, and looked out from behind the lace-draped windows until the great clock in the hall chimed the hour of nine; then, in an almost ungovernable rage, she would go up to her room, and her mother and Louisa would be made to suffer for her disappointment.

On the day in question she had seen Jay Gardiner coming up the stone steps, and was ready to meet him with her gayest smile, her jolliest laugh.

"It is always the unexpected which happens, Jay," she said, holding out both her lily-white hands. "Welcome, a hundred times welcome!"

He greeted her gravely. He could not have stooped and kissed the red lips that were held up to him if the action would have saved his life.

He was so silent and _distrait_ during the time, that Sally said:

"Aren't you well this morning, Jay, or has something gone wrong with you?" she asked, at length.

"I do feel a trifle out of sorts," he replied. "But pardon me for displaying my feelings before--a lady."

"Don't speak in that cold, strange fas.h.i.+on, Jay," replied the girl, laying a trembling hand on his arm. "You forget that I have a right to know what is troubling you, and to sympathize with and comfort you."

He looked wistfully at her.

Would it do to tell her the story of his love for Bernardine? Would she be moved to pity by the drifting apart of two lives because of a betrothal made in a spirit of fun at a race? He hardly dared hope so.

"I was thinking of a strange case that came under my observation lately," he said, "and somehow the subject has haunted me--even in my dreams--probably from the fact that it concerns a friend of mine in whom I take a great interest."

"Do tell me the story!" cried Sally, eagerly--"please do."