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. In her right hand she held the gleaming blade, the end of which rested against Jay's bared breast. The doctor had sunk into the nearest seat, and in that unfortunate moment had taken his eyes off the sufferer, whose life was ebbing so swiftly, and had dropped his face in his trembling hands to think out what he had best do in this dire moment of horror. All this Bernardine took in at a single glance. Jay Gardiner's life hung in the balance. She forgot her surroundings, forgot everything, but that she must save him even though at the risk of her own life. She would have gladly given a hundred lives, if she had them, to save him. She did not stop an instant to formulate any plan, but with a cry of the most intense horror, born of acute agony, she had cleared the space which divided her from young Mrs. Gardiner at a single bound, and in a twinkling had hurled the blade from her hands. Sally Gardiner was taken so entirely by surprise for an instant that she did not stoop to recover the gleaming knife which had fallen between her assailant and herself. In that instant, the doctor, who had witnessed the scene which had taken place with such lightning-like rapidity, sprung forward and grasped the furious woman, pinioning her hands behind her, and called loudly upon the servants to come to his aid and remove her from Jay Gardiner's bedside. But there was little need of their assistance. Sally Gardiner stood regarding Bernardine, her hands hanging by her sides, her eyes staring eagerly at the intruder. "_You_ here!" she muttered, in an almost inaudible voice. "What are _you_ doing in his sick-room, _you_ whom he always loved instead of me? He married _me_ from a sense of honor, but he loved you, and never ceased to let me understand that to be the case. What are you doing here now--_you_ of all other women?" "Come with me quietly into the other room and I will tell you how it happens that I am here--in _his_ home," whispered Bernardine, huskily. "No," she shrieked, laughing a hard, jeering, terrible laugh in Bernardine's white, pain-drawn face as she battled fiercely to shake off the doctor's hold of her pinioned arms. "I shall not go--I shall not leave my post until he is _dead_! Do you hear?--until he is dead! I shall not save him for you! I'd rather be his widow than his unloved wife!"