Bernardine clung to her with that awful look of agony in her beautiful eyes, but uttering no word.

"Has she gone?" she murmured, at length.

"Has who gone?" questioned Miss Rogers, wondering what she meant.

"The beautiful, pitiless stranger," sobbed Bernardine, catching her breath.

Miss Rogers believed that the girl's mind was wandering, and refrained from further questioning her.

"The poor child is grieving so over this coming marriage of hers to Jasper Wilde that I almost fear her mind is giving way," she thought, in intense alarm, glancing at Bernardine.

As she did so, Bernardine began to sob again, breaking into such a passionate fit of weeping, and suffering such apparently intense grief, that Miss Rogers was at a loss what to do or say.

She would not tell why she was weeping so bitterly; no amount of questioning could elicit from her what had happened.

Not for worlds would Bernardine have told to any human being her sad story—of the stranger's visit and the startling disclosures she had made to her.

It was not until Bernardine found herself locked securely in the seclusion of her room that she dared to look the matter fully in the face, and then the grief to which she abandoned herself was more poignant than before.

In her great grief, a terrible thought came to her. Why not end it all? Surely God would forgive her for laying down life's cross when it was too heavy to be borne.

Yes, that is what she would do. She would end it all.

Her father did not care for her; it caused him no grief to barter her, as the price of his secret, to Jasper Wilde, whom she loathed.

It lacked but one day to that marriage she so detested.

Yes, she would end it all before the morrow's sun rose.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Miss Rogers noticed that Bernardine was strangely silent and preoccupied during the remainder of that day; but she attached no particular importance to it.

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