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 glass 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 

 Prev. P 51/179 next