Doctor Gardiner's carriage drew up quickly before the curbstone, and as he sprung from the vehicle, his astonishment can better be imagined than described at finding himself face to face with his friend, Miss Rogers, and that it was she who had been ejected so summarily. The poor soul almost fainted for joy when she beheld the young physician.
"My dear Miss Rogers!" he cried in amazement, "what in the name of Heaven does the scene I have just witnessed mean?"
"Take me into your carriage, and drive down the street; that is, if you are not in a hurry to make a professional call."
Jay Gardiner lifted the drenched, trembling woman in his strong arms, placed her in the vehicle, took his seat beside her, and the brougham rolled down the avenue.
Clinging to his strong young arm, Miss Rogers told, between her smiles and tears, all that had taken place—of the test which she had put the Pendletons to before leaving her money to the girl Sally, who had been named after her; of its disastrous ending when she told Sally she was poor instead of rich; of the abuse the girl had heaped upon her, which ended by throwing her into the street.
She told all, keeping back nothing, little dreaming that Jay Gardiner knew the Pendletons, and, least of all, that Sally was his betrothed.
He listened with darkening brow, his stern lips set, his handsome, jovial, laughing face strangely white.
What could he say to her? He dared not give vent to his bitter thoughts, and denounce the girl he was in honor bound to give his name and shield from all the world's remarks.
"You have learned your lesson, Miss Rogers," he said, slowly. "Now be content to return to your own luxurious home and its comforts, a sadder and wiser woman."
"I have not tested all yet," she returned. "There is yet another family, whose address I have recently discovered after the most patient search. I had a cousin by marriage who ran off with a sea-captain. She died, leaving one child, a little daughter. The father no longer follows the sea, but lives at home with the girl, following the trade of basket-making, at which he is quite an expert, I am told, if he would only let drink alone."