Would he regret the step he had taken? The very thought sent a strange chill through her heart.
The next instant she had recovered herself.
"No, no! There will be no regrets between us now," she sobbed, hiding her white face in her trembling hands. "For he is another's and can never be anything more to me save a bitter-sweet memory. To-night I will give my pent-up grief full vent. Then I will bury it deep—deep out of the world's sight, and no one shall ever know that my life has been wrecked over—what might have been."
Slowly her trembling hands dropped from her face, and, with bowed head, Bernardine went slowly down the path, out of the sound of the dance-music and the laughing voices, down to where the crickets were chirping amid the long grasses, and the wind was moaning among the tall pines and the thick alders.
When she reached the brook she paused. It was very deep at this point—nearly ten feet, she had heard Miss Margaret say—and the bottom was covered with sharp, jagged rocks. That was what caused the hoarse, deep murmur as the swift-flowing water struck them in its hurried flight toward the sea.
Bernardine leaned heavily against one of the tall pines, and gave vent to her grief.
Why had God destined one young girl to have youth, beauty, wealth, and love, while the other had known only life's hardships? Miss Rogers' offer of wealth had come to her too late. It could not buy that which was more to her than everything else in the world put together—Jay Gardiner's love.
The companionship of beautiful women, the homage of noble men, were as nothing to her. She would go through life with a dull, aching void in her breast. There would always be a longing cry in her heart that would refuse to be stilled. No matter where she went, whom she met, the face of Jay Gardiner, as she had seen it first—the laughing, dark-blue eyes and the bonny brown curls—would haunt her memory while her life lasted.
"Good-bye, my lost love! It is best that you and I should never meet again!" she sobbed.
Suddenly she became aware that she was not standing there alone. Scarcely ten feet from her she beheld the figure of a man, and she realized that he was regarding her intently.