She is in _his_ home, and he is coming here with his bride! Great God! what irony of fate led her here? Her bonnet and cloak are over her arm. "Shall I don them, and fly from this place?" she asks herself over and over again. But her tired limbs begin to ache, every nerve in her body begins to twitch, and she realizes that her tired nature has endured all it can. She must stay here, for the night at least. Despite the fatigue of the previous night, Bernardine awoke early the next morning, and when the housekeeper came to call her, she found her already dressed. "You are an early riser, Miss Moore," she said. "That is certainly a virtue which will commend itself to my mistress, who rises early herself. You will come at once to her _boudoir_. Follow me, Miss Moore." She reached Mrs. Gardiner's _boudoir_ before she was aware of it, so intent were her thoughts. That lady was sitting at a small marble table, sipping a cup of very fragrant coffee. A small, very odorous broiled bird lay on a square of browned toast on a silver plate before her. She pushed it aside as Bernardine entered. "Good-morning, Miss Moore," she said, showing a trifle more kindliness than she had exhibited on the previous evening; "I hope you rested well last night. Sit down." Bernardine complied; but before she could answer these commonplace, courteous remarks, an inner door opened, and a lady, neither very young nor very old, entered the room. "Good-morning, mamma," she said; and by that remark Bernardine knew that this was Jay's sister. She almost devoured her with eager eyes, trying to trace a resemblance in her features to her handsome brother. "Margaret, this is my new companion, Miss Moore," said Mrs. Gardiner, languidly. Bernardine blushed to the roots of her dark hair, as two dark-blue eyes, so like Jay's, looked into her own. "Welcome to Gardiner Castle, Miss Moore," replied Margaret Gardiner. She did not hold out her hand, but she looked into the startled young face with a kindly smile and a nod. Whatever her thoughts were in regard to her mother's companion, they were not expressed in her face. A score of times during the half hour that followed, Bernardine tried to find courage to tell Mrs. Gardiner that she must go away; that she could not live under that roof and meet the man she loved, and who was to bring home a bride. But each time the words died away on her lips. Then suddenly, she could not tell how or when the feeling entered her heart, the longing came to her to look upon the face of the young girl who had gained the love she would have given her very life--ay, her hope of heaven--to have retained. CHAPTER XLV. To sit quietly by and hear mother and daughter discuss the man she loved, was as hard for Bernardine to endure as the pangs of death.