"You are a very much younger person than I supposed you to be from your letter, Miss Moore. Scarcely more than a child, I should say," she added, as she motioned Bernardine to a seat with a wave of the hand. "I will speak plainly," she went on, slowly. "I am disappointed. I imagined you to be a young lady of uncertain age--say, thirty or thirty-five. When a woman reaches that age, and has found no one to marry her, there is a chance of her becoming reconciled to her fate. I want a companion with whom I can feel secure. I do not want any trouble with love or lovers, above all. I would not like to get used to a companion, and have her leave me for some man. In fine, you see, I want one who will put all thought of love or marriage from her." Bernardine held out her clasped hands. "You need have no fear on that score, dear madame," she replied in a trembling tone. "I shall never love--I shall never marry. I--I never want to behold the face of a man. Please believe me and trust me." "Since you are here, I may as well take you on trial," replied the grand old lady, resignedly. "Now you may go to your room, Miss Moore. You will come to me here at nine to-morrow morning," she said, dismissing Bernardine with a haughty nod. The housekeeper had said she would find the room that had been prepared for her at the extreme end of the same corridor, and in groping her way to it in the dim, rose-colored light which pervaded the outer hall, she unconsciously turned in the wrong direction, and went to the right instead of the left. The door stood ajar, and thinking the housekeeper had left it in this way for her, Bernardine pushed it open. To her great astonishment, she found herself in a beautifully furnished sleeping apartment, upholstered in white and gold of the costliest description, and flooded by a radiance of brilliant light from a grand chandelier overhead. But it was not the magnificent hangings, or the long mirrors, in their heavy gilt frames, that caught and held the girl's startled gaze. It was a full-length portrait hanging over the marble mantle, and it startled her so that she uttered a low cry, and clasped her little hands together as children do when uttering a prayer. Her reverie lasted only for a moment. Then she drifted back to the present. She was in this strange house as a companion, and the first thing she came across was the portrait, as natural as life itself, of--Jay Gardiner! A mad desire came over her to kneel before the picture and--die! CHAPTER XLIV. Bernardine did not have much time to study the portrait, for all of a sudden she heard footsteps in the corridor without, and in another moment Mrs. King, the housekeeper, had crossed the threshold, and approached her excitedly. "I feared you would be apt to make this mistake," she said, breathlessly. "Your room is in the opposite direction, Miss Moore."