"I am positive Doctor Gardiner knows but this one Bernardine. In fact, I heard him say that he never remembered hearing that beautiful name until he heard it for the first time in the humble home of the old basket-maker. And he went on to tell me how lovely the girl was, despite her surroundings."
The veiled lady arose hastily, her hands clinched.
"I thank you for your information," she said, huskily, as she moved rapidly toward the door.
"She is going without my even knowing who she is," thought Doctor Covert, and he sprung from his chair, saying, eagerly:
"I beg a thousand pardons if the remark I am about to make seems presumptuous; but believe that it comes from a heart not prompted by idle curiosity—far, far from that."
"What is it that you wish to know?" asked Sally, curtly.
"Who you are," he replied, with blunt eagerness. "I may as well tell you the truth. I am deeply interested in you, even though you are a stranger, and the bare possibility that we may never meet again fills me with the keenest sorrow I have ever experienced."
Sally Pendleton was equal to the occasion.
"I must throw him off the track at once by giving him a false name and address," she thought.
She hesitated only a moment.