"The girl must be a coarse, ill-bred working-girl," she told herself, "no matter how pretty her face may be." A number of fleshy, ill-clad women, holding still more poorly clad, fretful children, sat on the door-step, hung out of the open windows and over the balusters, gossiping and slandering their neighbors quite as energetically as the petted wives of the Four Hundred on the fashionable avenues do. Sally took all this in with a disgusted glance; but lifting her dainty, lace-trimmed linen skirts, she advanced boldly. "I am in search of a basket-maker who lives somewhere in this vicinity," said Sally. "Could you tell me if he lives here?" "He lives right here," spoke up one of the women. "David Moore is out, so is the elderly woman who is staying with him; but Miss Bernardine is in, I am certain, working busily over her baskets. If you want to see about baskets, she's the one to go to--top floor, right." Sally made her way up the narrow, dingy stairs until she reached the top floor. The door to the right stood open, and as Sally advanced she saw a young girl turn quickly from a long pine table covered with branches of willow, and look quickly up. Sally Pendleton stood still, fairly rooted to the spot with astonishment not unmingled with rage, for the girl upon whom she gazed was the most gloriously beautiful creature she had ever beheld. She did not wonder now that Jay Gardiner had given his heart to her. In that one moment a wave of such furious hate possessed the soul of Sally Pendleton that it was with the greatest difficulty she could restrain herself from springing upon the unconscious young girl and wrecking forever the fatal beauty which had captivated the heart of the man who was her lover and was so soon to wed. Sally had thrown back her veil, and was gazing at her rival with her angry soul in her eyes. Seeing the handsomely dressed young lady, Bernardine came quickly forward with the sweet smile and graceful step habitual to her. "You wish to see some one--my father, perhaps?" murmured Bernardine, gently. "_You_ are the person I wish to see," returned Sally, harshly--"you, and no one else." Bernardine looked at her wonderingly. The cold, hard voice struck her ear unpleasantly, and the strange look in the stranger's hard, steel-blue eyes made her feel strangely uncomfortable. Was it a premonition of coming evil? CHAPTER XXV. She was not to remain long in suspense. "In the first place," began Sally, slowly, "I wish to know what your relations are, Bernardine Moore, with Doctor Jay Gardiner. I must and will know the truth." She saw that the question struck the girl as lightning strikes a fair white rose and withers and blights it with its awful fiery breath. Bernardine was fairly stricken dumb. She opened her lips to speak, but no sound issued from them. She could not have uttered one syllable if her life had depended on it.