CHAPTER XXXIII.
The room into which Sally Pendleton was ushered was so dimly lighted that she was obliged to take the second glance about ere she could distinguish where the couch was on which Jay Gardiner lay. The next moment she was bending over him, crying and lamenting so loudly that the doctors waiting outside were obliged to go to her and tell her that this outburst might prove fatal to their patient in that critical hour.
Jay Gardiner was looking up at her with dazed eyes. He recognized her, uttered her name.
"Was it to-night that I left your house, after settling when the marriage was to take place?" he asked.
Miss Pendleton humored the idea by answering "Yes," instead of telling him that the visit he referred to had taken place several weeks before.
"To-day was to have been our wedding-day," she sobbed, "and now you are ill—very ill. But, Jay," she whispered, bending down and uttering the words rapidly in his ear, "it could take place just the same, here and now, if you are willing. I sent a note to a minister to come here, and he may arrive at any moment. When he comes, shall I speak to him about it?"
He did not answer; he was trying to remember something, trying, oh, so hard, to remember something that lay like a weight on his mind.
Heaven help him! the past was entirely blotted out of his memory!
He recollected leaving Miss Pendleton's house after setting the date for his marriage with her, but beyond that evening the world was a blank to him.
He never remembered that there were such people as David Moore, the basket-maker, and a beautiful girl, his daughter Bernardine, to whom he had lost his heart, and whom he had wedded, and that she was now waiting for him. His mind was to be a blank upon all that for many a day to come.