Jay Gardiner listened to every word with intense interest.
"While I have been here I have been thinking—thinking," she sobbed. "Oh, it was cruel of me to try to avoid my duty to poor father. I must go back and—and marry Jasper Wilde, to save poor papa, who must now be half-crazed by my disappearance."
Doctor Gardiner clasped her little hands still closer. The time had come when he must break the awful news to her that her father was no longer in Jasper Wilde's power; that he had passed beyond all fear of him, all fear of punishment at the hand of man.
"Are you strong enough to bear a great shock, Bernardine?" he whispered, involuntarily gathering the slender figure to him.
The girl grew pale as death.
"Is it something about father? Has anything happened to him?" she faltered, catching her breath.
He nodded his head; then slowly, very gently, he told her of the fire, and that he had seen her father perish—that he was now forever beyond Jasper Wilde's power.
Poor Bernardine listened like one turned to stone: then, without a word or a cry, fell at his feet in a faint.
At that opportune moment the old nurse returned.
Doctor Gardiner soon restored her to consciousness; but it made his heart bleed to witness her intense grief. She begged him to take her to the ruins, and with great reluctance he consented.