Bernardine rose slowly to her feet, and looked back at the lights of the great city that she was leaving.
There would be no one to miss her; no one to weep over her untimely fate; no one to grieve that she had taken the fatal step to eternity.
Her father would be glad that there was no one to follow his step by night and by day, and plead with the wine-sellers to give him no more drink. He would rejoice that he could follow his own will, and drink as much as he pleased.
There was no dear old mother whose heart would break; no gentle sister or brother who would never forget her; no husband to mourn for her; no little child to hold out its hands to the blue sky, and cry to her to come back. No one would miss her on the face of God's earth.
Alas! for poor Bernardine, how little she knew that at that very hour the man whose love she craved most was wearing his very heart out for love of her.
Bernardine took but one hurried glance backward; then, with a sobbing cry, sprung over the pier, and into the dark, seething waters.
CHAPTER XXVII.
When Jay Gardiner left the city, he had expected to be gone a week, possibly a fortnight; but, owing to an unexpected turn in the business he was transacting, he was enabled to settle it in a day or so, and return to the city.
It was by the merest chance that he took passage by boat instead of going by rail; or, more truly speaking, there was a fate in it. The boat was due at the wharf by midnight; but, owing to an unaccountable delay, caused by the breaking of some machinery in the engine-room, it was after one o'clock when the steamer touched the wharf.