sent for. It was soon ascertained that his mother and sister were in Europe, traveling about the Continent. The next person equally, if indeed not more interested, was the young lady he was betrothed to marry--Miss Pendleton. Accordingly, she was sent for with all possible haste.

A servant bearing a message for Sally entered the room.

The girl's hands trembled. She tore the envelope open quickly, and as her eyes traveled over the contents of the note, she gave a loud scream.

"Jay Gardiner has met with an accident, and I am sent for. Ah! that is why I have not heard from him for a week, mamma!" she exclaimed, excitedly."I will go with you, my dear," declared her mother. "It wouldn't be proper for you to go alone. Make your toilet at once."

To the messenger's annoyance, the young lady he was sent for kept him waiting nearly an hour, and he was startled, a little later, to see the vision of blonde loveliness that came hurrying down the broad stone steps in the wake of her mother.

"Beautiful, but she has no heart," was his mental opinion. "Very few girls would have waited an hour, knowing their lover lay at the point of death. But it's none of my business, though I _do_ wish noble young Doctor Gardiner had made a better selection for a wife."

The cab whirled rapidly on, and soon reached Doctor Gardiner's office.

Sally looked a little frightened, and turned pale under her rouge when she saw the group of grave-faced physicians evidently awaiting her arrival.

"Our patient has recovered consciousness," said one of them, taking her by the hand and leading her forward. "He is begging pitifully to see some one--of course, it must be yourself--some one who is waiting for him."

"Of course," repeated Sally. "There is no one he would be so interested in seeing as myself."

And quite alone, she entered the inner apartment where Jay Gardiner lay hovering between life and death.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The room into which Sally Pendleton was ushered was so dimly lighted that she was obliged to take the second glance about ere she could distinguish where the couch was on which Jay Gardiner lay. The next moment she was bending over him, crying and lamenting so loudly that the doctors waiting outside were obliged to go to her and tell her 

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