Jolly Sally Pendleton Part 26

"We do not take pay for any services we render here, my dear," she said.

"This is a young girls' temporary shelter, kept up by a few of the very wealthy women in this great city."

Bernardine was very much surprised to hear this; but before she could reply, the lady threw open a door to the right, and Bernardine was ushered into a plain but scrupulously neat apartment in which sat a young girl of apparently her own age.

"Sleep here in peace, comfort and security," said the lady. "I will have a talk with you on the morrow," and she closed the door softly, leaving Bernardine alone with the young girl at the window, who had faced about and was regarding her eagerly.

"I am awfully glad you are come," she broke in quickly; "it was terribly slow occupying this room all alone, as I told the matron awhile ago. It seems she took pity on me and sent you here. But why don't you sit down, girl? You look at me as though you were not particularly struck with my face, and took a dislike to me at first sight, as most people do."

She was correct in her surmise. Bernardine _had_ taken a dislike to her, she scarcely knew why.

Bernardine forgot her own trials and anxiety in listening to the sorrowful story of this hapless creature.

"Why don't you try to find work in some other factory or some shop?"

asked Bernardine, earnestly.

"My clothes are so shabby, my appearance is against me. No one wants to employ a girl whose dress is all tatters."

A sudden thought came to Bernardine, and she acted on the impulse.

"Here," she said, pulling out her pocket-book--"here is ten dollars. Get a dress, and try to find work. The money is not a loan; it is a gift."

The girl had hardly heard the words, ere a cry of amazement fell from her lips. She was eyeing the well-filled pocket-book with a burning gaze.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

The girl took the money which Bernardine handed to her, her eyes following every movement of the white hand that placed the wallet back in her pocket.

"You must be rich to have so much money about you," she said, slowly, with a laugh that grated harshly on Bernardine's sensitive ears.

"It is not mine," said Bernardine, simply; "it is my husband's, and represents all the years of toil he has worked, and all the rigid economy he has practiced."

The girl looked at her keenly. Could it be that she was simple enough to believe that the man who had deserted her so cruelly had _married_ her?

Well, let her believe what she chose, it was no business of hers.

The bowl of bread and milk and the cup of tea were sent up to Bernardine, and she disposed of them with a heartiness that amused her companion.

"I am afraid you will not sleep well after eating so late," she said, with a great deal of anxiety in her voice.

"I shall rest all the better for taking the hot milk. I fall asleep generally as soon as my head touches the pillow, and I do not wake until the next morning. Why, if the house tumbled down around me, I believe that I would not know it. I will remove my jacket, to keep it from wrinkling."

This information seemed to please her companion. She breathed a sigh of relief, and an ominous glitter crept into her small black eyes.

"But I do not want to go to sleep to-night," added Bernardine in the next breath. "I shall sit by the window, with my face pressed against the pane, watching for my--my husband."

Her companion, who had introduced herself as Margery Brown, cried out hastily:

"Don't do that. You will look like a washed-out, wilted flower by to-morrow, if you do, and your--your husband won't like that. Men only care for women when they are fresh and fair. Go to bed, and I will sit up and watch for you, and wake you when he comes; though it's my opinion he won't come until to-morrow, for fear of disturbing you."

But Bernardine was firm in her resolve.

"He may come any minute," she persisted, drawing her chair close to the window, and peering wistfully out into the storm.

But a tired feeling, caused by the great excitement She had undergone that day, at length began to tell upon her, and her eyes drooped wearily in spite of her every effort to keep them open, and at last, little by little, they closed, and the long, dark, curling lashes, heavy with unshed tears, lay still upon the delicately rounded cheeks.

Margery Brown bent forward, watching her eagerly.

"Asleep at last," she muttered, rising from her seat and crossing the room with a stealthy, cat-like movement, until she reached Bernardine's side.

Bending over her, she laid her hand lightly on her shoulder.

Bernardine stirred uneasily, muttering something in her, sleep about "loving him so fondly," the last of the sentence ending in a troubled sigh.

"They used to tell me that I had the strange gift of being able to mesmerize people," she muttered. "We will see if I can do it _now_. I'll try it."

Standing before Bernardine, she made several pa.s.ses with her hands before the closed eyelids. They trembled slightly, but did not open.

Again and again those hands waved to and fro before Bernardine with the slowness and regularity of a pendulum.

"Ah, ha!" she muttered at length under her breath, "she sleeps sound enough now."

She laid her hand heavily on Bernardine's breast. The gentle breathing did not abate, and with a slow movement the hand slid down to the pocket of her dress, fumbled about the folds for a moment, then reappeared, tightly clutching the well-filled wallet.

"You can sleep on as comfortably as you like now, my innocent little fool!" she muttered. "Good-night, and good-bye to you."

Hastily donning Bernardine's jacket and hat, the girl stole noiselessly from the room, closing the door softly after her.

So exhausted was Bernardine, she did not awaken until the suns.h.i.+ne, drifting into her face in a flood of golden light, forced the long black lashes to open.

For an instant she was bewildered as she sat up in her chair, looking about the small white room; but in a moment she remembered all that had transpired.

She saw that she was the sole occupant of the apartment, and concluded her room-mate must have gone to breakfast; but simultaneously with this discovery, she saw that her jacket and hat were missing.

She was mystified at first, loath to believe that her companion could have appropriated them, and left the torn and ragged articles she saw hanging in their place.

As she arose from her chair, she discovered that her pocket was hanging inside out, and that the pocket-book was gone!

For an instant she was fairly paralyzed. Then the white lips broke into a scream that brought the matron, who was just pa.s.sing the door, quickly to her side.

In a hysterical voice, quite as soon as she could command herself to articulate the words, she told the good woman what had happened.

The matron listened attentively.

"I never dreamed that you had money about you my poor child," she said, "or I would have suggested your leaving it with me. I worried afterward about putting you in this room with Margaret Brown; but we were full, and there was no help for it. That is her great fault. She is not honest. We knew that, but when she appealed to me for a night's lodging, I could not turn her away. The front door is never locked, and those who come here can leave when they like. We found it standing open this morning, and we felt something was wrong."

But Bernardine did not hear the last of the sentence. With a cry she fell to the floor at the matron's feet in a death-like swoon.