CHAPTER X.
WHAT IS LIFE WITHOUT LOVE?
Every evening, on some pretext or other, Jay Gardiner managed to pay David Moore, the basket-maker, a visit, and the cynical old man began to look forward to these visits.
He never dreamed that his daughter was the magnet which drew the young man to his poor home. They were evenings that Jay Gardiner never forgot.
Bernardine was slightly confused at first by his presence; then she began to view the matter in another light—that the young doctor had taken quite an interest in her father. He had certainly cured him of a terrible habit, and she was only too pleased that her father should have visits from so pleasant a man.
She always had some work in her slender white hands when the doctor called. Sometimes, glancing up unexpectedly, she would find the doctor's keen blue eyes regarding her intently, and she would bend lower over her sewing. Jay Gardiner, however, saw the flush that rose to her cheek and brow.
As he sat in that little tenement sitting-room—he who had been flattered and courted by the most beautiful heiresses—he experienced a feeling of rest come over him.
He would rather pass one hour in that plain, unpretentious sitting-room than visit the grandest Fifth Avenue mansion.
And thus a fortnight passed. At the end of that time, Jay Gardiner stood face to face with the knowledge of his own secret—that he had at last met in Bernardine Moore the idol of his life. He stood face to face with this one fact—that wealth, grandeur, anything that earth could give him, was of little value unless he had the love of sweet Bernardine.
It came upon him suddenly that the sweet witchery, the glamor falling over him was—love.