For a moment it seemed to Bernardine as though she must surely fall dead from fright as her startled gaze encountered her greatest enemy, Jasper Wilde.
Had he followed her? Had he come all the way on the same train with her?
She realized that she was alone with him on this isolated railway platform, miles perhaps from any habitation, any human being, far beyond the reach of help.
The thick, heavy twilight had given place to a night of intense darkness. The flickering light of the solitary gas-lamp over the station door did not pierce the gloom more than three feet away. Bernardine did not know this, and she sunk back in deadly fear behind one of the large, old-fashioned, square posts. The long dark cloak and bonnet she wore would never betray her presence there.
Bernardine soon became aware that he had not seen her, for he stopped short scarcely a rod from her, drew out his watch, and looked at the time; then, with a fierce imprecation on his lips, he cried aloud:
"Missed the train by just one minute! Curse the luck! But then it's worth my trip here, and the trouble I've been put to, to know that the Mrs. Jay Gardiner in question is some New York society belle instead of Bernardine. Ah, if it were Bernardine, I would have followed him to the end of the earth and murdered him; taken her from him by force, if no other way presented itself. I love the girl to madness, and yet I hate her with all the strength of my nature!"
As he uttered the words, he wheeled about, hurried down the platform, and stepped into the darkness, the sound of his quick tread plainly dying away in the distance.
It seemed to Bernardine that her escape from the clutches of Jasper Wilde was little short of miraculous. Trembling in every limb, she stepped out from behind the large pillar which shielded her.
He had not come by the same train; he did not know she was here. But what caused him to come to this place to look for Jay Gardiner and his bride? Perhaps it was because he had learned in some way that a family named Gardiner resided here, and he had come out of his way only to discover that they were not one and the same.
While Bernardine was ruminating over this, she saw the short, thick-set figure of a man approaching.