"I had always hoped to persuade you to let me pick out a wife for you, Jay, my darling son," she wrote. "I can only hope you have chosen wisely when you took the reins into your own hands. Come and make us a visit, and bring your wife with you. We are very anxious to meet her."
Sally frowned as he read the letter aloud.
Never in the world were two united who were so unsuited to each other. Why did the fates that are supposed to have the love affairs of mortals in charge, allow the wrong man to marry the wrong woman?
There was one thing over which Sally was exceedingly jubilant, and that was his loss of memory. That he had known such a person as Bernardine Moore, the old basket-maker's beautiful daughter, was entirely obliterated from his mind.
Some one had mentioned the great tenement-house fire in Jay Gardiner's presence, and the fact that quite a quaint character, a tipsy basket-maker, had lost his life therein, but the young doctor looked up without the slightest gleam of memory drifting through his brain. Not even when the person who was telling him the story went on to say that the great fire accomplished one good result, however, and that was the wiping out of the wine-house of Jasper Wilde & Son.
"Wilde—Jasper Wilde! It seems to me that I have heard that name before in connection with some unpleasant transaction," said Doctor Gardiner, slowly.
"Oh, no doubt. You've probably read the name in the papers connected with some street brawl. Jasper Wilde, the son, is a well-dressed tough."
"Before going to see your mother, why not spend a few weeks at Newport with Sally," suggested Mrs. Pendleton to the doctor. "You know she has not been away on her wedding-trip yet."
He laughed a dry, mirthless laugh.
"She can go if she likes," he replied. "I can endure it."