On the dressing-case there was a full set of toilet and manicure utensils, in solid silver, and also marked with the same initials; besides these there were exquisite bottles of cut glass, with gold stoppers filled with various kinds of perfumery.

Upon the bed there lay an elegant sealskin garment, which, at a glance, Edith knew must have been cut to fit her figure, and beside it there was a pretty muff and a Parisian hat that could not have cost less than thirty dollars, while over the foot-board there hung three or four beautiful dresses.

"Did they suppose that they could buy me over—tempt me to sell myself for this gorgeous finery?" the indignant girl exclaimed, in a voice that quivered with anger. "They must think me very weak-minded and variable if they did."

But her curiosity was excited to see how far they had carried their extravagant bribery; and, going back to the dressing-case, she drew out the upper drawer.

Notwithstanding her indignation and scorn, she could not suppress a cry of mingled astonishment and admiration at what she saw there, for the receptacle contained the daintiest lingerie imaginable.

There were beautiful laces, handkerchiefs, and gloves, suitable for every occasion; three or four fans of costly material and exquisite workmanship; a pair of pearl-and-gold opera glasses.

More than this, and arranged so as to cunningly tempt the eye, there were several cases of jewels—comprising pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.

It was an array to tempt the most obdurate heart and fancy, and Edith stood gazing upon the lovely things with admiring eyes while, after a moment, a little sigh of regret accompanied her resolute act of shutting the drawer and turning the key in its lock.

The second and third contained several suits of exquisite underwear of finest material, and comprising everything that a lady could need or desire in that line; in the fourth drawer there were boxes of silken hose of various colors, together with lovely French boots and slippers suitable for different costumes.

"What a pity to spend so much money for nothing," Edith murmured, regretfully, when she had concluded her inspection. "It is very evident that they look upon me as a silly, vacillating girl, who can be easily managed and won over by pretty clothes and glittering baubles. I suppose there are girls whose highest ambition in life is to possess such things, and to lead an existence of luxury and pleasure—who would doubtless sell themselves for them; but I should hate and scorn myself for accepting anything of the kind from a man whom I could neither respect nor love."

She gave utterance to a heavy sigh as she closed the drawer and turned away from the dressing-case; not, however, because she longed to possess the beautiful things she had seen, but in view of the difficulties which might lie before her to hamper her movements in the effort to escape from her enemies.

"I suppose I must remain here for a few hours at least," she continued, an expression of anxiety flitting over her face, "and if I expect to carry out my plans successfully I must begin by assuming a submissive role."

She removed her hat and wraps, hanging them in a closet; then, going to her trunk, she selected what few articles she would absolutely need on her journey to New York, and some important papers—among them the letters which her own mother had written—and after hastily making them up into a neat package, returned them again to the trunk for concealment, until she should be ready to leave the house.

This done, she sat down by a window to await and meet, with what fortitude she could command, the next act in the drama of her life.

Not long after she heard a step in the hall, then there came a knock on her door, and madam's voice called out:

"It is only I, Edith; may I come in?"

"Yes, come," unhesitatingly responded the girl, and Mrs. Goddard, her face beaming with smiles and good nature, entered the room.

"How do you like your new quarters, dear?" she inquired, searching Edith's fair face with eager eyes.

"Of course, everything is very beautiful," she returned, glancing admiringly around the apartment.

"And are you pleased with the additions to the furnishings?—the chair, the work-table, and writing-desk?"

"I have never seen anything more lovely," Edith replied, bending forward as if to examine more closely the filigree stamp box on the desk, but in reality to conceal the flush of scorn that leaped into her eyes.

"I knew you would like them," said madam, with a little note of triumph in her voice; "they are exquisite, and Emil is going to have them carefully packed, and take them along for you to use wherever you stop in your travels. And the cloak and dresses—aren't they perfectly elegant? The jewels, too, and other things in the dressing-case; have you seen them?"

"Yes, I have seen them all; but—but I am very sorry that so much money should have been spent for me," Edith faltered, a hot flush, which her companion interpreted as one of pleasure and gratified vanity, suffusing her cheeks.

"Oh, the money is of no account, if you are only happy," Mrs. Goddard lightly remarked. "And now," she went on eagerly, "I want you to dress yourself just as nicely as you can, and be ready, when the bell rings, to come down to lunch, as it becomes—my sister. Will you, dear?" she concluded, coaxingly. "Do, Edith, be reasonable; let us bury the hatchet, and all be on good terms."

"I—I do not think I can quite make up my mind to go down to lunch," Edith faltered, with averted face.

Madam frowned; she had begun to think her victory was won, and the disappointment nettled her. But she controlled herself and remarked pleasantly:

"Well, then, I will send up your lunch, if you will promise to come down and dine with us, will you?"

Edith hesitated a moment; then, drawing a long breath, she remarked, as if with bashful hesitancy:

"I think, perhaps—I will go down later—by and by."

"Now you are beginning to be sensible, dear," said madam, flashing a covert look of exultation at her, "and Emil will be so happy. Put on this silver-gray silk—it is so lovely, trimmed with white lace—and the pearls; you will be charming in the costume. I am sorry I have to go directly after lunch," she continued, regretfully, "but I have a call to make, and shall not be back for a couple of hours; but Emil will be here; so if you can find it in your heart to be a little kind to him, just put on the gray silk—or anything else you may prefer—and go down to him. May I tell him that you will?"

"I will not promise—at least until after you return," murmured Edith, in a low voice.

Madam could have laughed in triumph, for she believed the victory was hers.

"Well, perhaps you would feel a trifle shy about it," she said, good-naturedly, "it would be pleasanter and easier for you, no doubt, if I were here, so I will come for you when I get back. Good-by, till then."

And with a satisfied little nod and smile, madam left her and went downstairs to tell her brother that his munificence had won the day, and he would have no further trouble with a fractious bride.



CHAPTER XXI.

A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER PAYS EDITH AN UNEXPECTED VISIT.

Edith listened until she heard madam descend the stairs, when she sprang to her feet in a fever of excitement.

"Oh, how I hate myself for practicing even that much of deceit!" she bitterly exclaimed; "to allow her to think for a moment that I have been won over by those baubles. Although I told her no lie, I do intend to go down by and by if I can see an opportunity to get out of the house. But I did so long to stand boldly up and repudiate her proposals and all these costly bribes. Dress myself in those things!" she continued, with a scornful glance toward the bed; "make myself look 'pretty and nice,' with the price of my self-respect, and then go down to flaunt before the man who has grossly insulted me by assuming that he could bribe me to submission! I would rather be clothed in rags—the very sight of these things makes me sick at heart."

She turned resolutely from them, and, drawing the stiffest and hardest chair in the room to a window, sat down with her back to the allurements around her and gazed out upon the street.

She remained there until her lunch was sent up, when she ate enough to barely satisfy her hunger, after which she went back to her post to watch for the departure of Mrs. Goddard.

The house stood upon a corner, and thus faced upon two streets—the avenue in front, and at the side a cross-street that led through to Beacon street. Thus, Edith's room being upon the front of the mansion, she had a wide outlook in two directions.

Not long after stationing herself at the window, she saw Mrs. Goddard go out, and then she began to wonder how she could manage to make her escape before her return.

She knew that she was only a prisoner in the house, in spite of the fact that her door was not locked; that Emil Correlli had been left below simply to act as her keeper; and, should she make the slightest attempt to escape, he would immediately intercept her.

She could not get out of the house except by the front way, and to do this she would have to pass down a long flight of stairs and by two or three rooms, in any one of which Emil Correlli might be on the watch in anticipation of this very proceeding.

There was a back stairway; but as this led directly up from the area hall, the door at the bottom was always carefully kept locked—the key hanging on a concealed nail for fear of burglars; and Edith, knowing this, did not once think of attempting to go out that way.

While she sat by the window, trying to think of some way out of her difficulties, her attention was attracted by the peculiar movements of a woman on the opposite side of the street—it was the side street leading through to Beacon.

She was of medium height, richly clad in a long seal garment, but heavily veiled, and she was leading a little child, of two or three years, by the hand.

But for her strange behavior, Edith would have simply thought her to be some young mother, who was giving her little one an airing on that pleasant winter afternoon. She appeared very anxious to shun observation, dropping her head whenever any one passed her, and sometimes turning abruptly around to avoid the gaze of the curious.

She never entirely passed the house, but walked back and forth again and again from the corner to a point opposite the area door near the rear of the dwelling, while she eagerly scanned every window, as if seeking for a glimpse of some one whom she knew. Moreover, from time to time, her eyes appeared to rest curiously upon Edith, whom she could plainly perceive at her post above.

For nearly half an hour she kept this up; then, suddenly crossing the street, disappeared within the area entrance to the house, greatly to the surprise of our fair heroine.

"How very strange!" Edith remarked, in astonishment. "She is certainly too richly clad to be the friend of any of the servants, and if she desires to see Mrs. Goddard, why did she not go to the front entrance and ring?"

While she was pondering the singular incident, she saw the gas-man emerge from the same door, and pass down the street toward another house; then her mind reverted again to her own precarious situation, and she forgot about the intruder and her child below.

The house was very still—there was not even a servant moving about to disturb the almost uncanny silence that reigned throughout it. It was Thursday, and Edith knew that the housemaid and cook's assistant were to have that afternoon out, which, doubtless, accounted in a measure for the unusual quiet.

But this very fact she knew would only serve to make any movement on her part all the more noticeable, and while she was wondering how she should manage her escape before the return of Mrs. Goddard, a slight noise behind her suddenly warned her of the presence of another in the room.

She turned quickly, and a low cry of surprise broke from her as she saw standing, just inside the door, the very woman whom, a few moments before she had seen disappear within the area door of the house.

She was now holding her child in her arms and regarding Edith through her veil with a look of fire and hatred that made the girl's flesh creep with a sense of horror.

Putting the little one down on the floor, she braced herself against the door and remarked, with a bitter sneer, but in a rich, musical voice, and with a foreign accent:

"Without doubt I am in the presence of Madam Correlli."

Edith flushed crimson at her words.

"I—I do not understand you," she faltered, filled with surprise and dismay at being thus addressed by the veiled stranger.

"I wish to see Madam Correlli," the woman remarked, in an impatient and bitter tone. "I am sure I am not mistaken addressing you thus."

"Yes, you are mistaken—there is no such person," Edith boldly replied, determined that she would never commit herself by responding to that hated name.

"Are you not the girl whose name was Edith Allen?" demanded her companion, sharply.

"My name is Edith Allen—"

She checked herself suddenly, for she had unwittingly come near uttering the rest of it. She went a step or two nearer the woman, trying to distinguish her features, which were so shadowed by the veil she wore that she could not tell how she looked.

"Ah! so you will admit your identity, but you will not confess to the name by which I have addressed you. Why?" demanded the unknown visitor, with a sneer.

"Because I do not choose," said Edith, coldly. "Who are you, and why have you forced yourself upon me thus?"

"And you will also deny this?" cried the stranger, in tones of repressed passion, but ignoring the girl's questions, as she pulled a paper from her pocket and thrust under her eyes a notice of the marriage at Wyoming.

Edith grew pale at the sight of it, when the other, quick to observe it, laughed softly but derisively.

"Ah, no; you cannot deny that you were married to Emil Correlli, only the night before last, in the presence of many, many people," she said, in a hoarse, passionate whisper. "Do you think you can deceive me? Do you dare to lie to me?"

"I have no wish to deceive you. I would not knowingly utter a falsehood to any one," Edith gravely returned. "I know, of course, to what you refer; but"—throwing back her head with a defiant air—"I will never answer to the name by which you have called me!"

"Ha! say you so! And why?" eagerly exclaimed her companion, regarding her curiously. "Can you deny that you went to the altar with Emil Correlli?" she continued, excitedly. "That a clergyman read the marriage service over you?—that you were afterward introduced to many people as his wife?—and that you are now living under the same roof with him, surrounded by all this luxury"—sweeping her eyes around the room—"for which he has paid?"

"No, I cannot deny it!" said Edith, with a weary sigh. "All that you have read in that paper really happened; but—"

"Aha! Well, but what?" interposed the woman, with a malicious sneer that instantly aroused all Edith's spirit.

"Pardon me," she said, drawing herself proudly erect and speaking with offended dignity, "but I cannot understand what right you, an utter stranger to me, have to intrude upon me thus. Who are you, madam, and why have you forced yourself here to question me in such a dictatorial manner?"

"Ha! ha! ha!" The mirthless laugh was scarcely audible, but it was replete with a bitterness that made Edith shiver with a nameless horror. "Who am I, indeed? Let me assure you that I am one who would never take the stand that you have just taken; who would never refuse to be known as the wife of Emil Correlli, or to be called by his name if I could but have the right to such a position. Look at me!" she commanded, tearing the veil from her face. "We have met before."

Edith beheld her, and was amazed, for it needed but a glance to show her that she was the girl who had accosted Emil Correlli on the street that afternoon when he had overtaken and walked home with her after the singular accident and encounter with Mrs. Stewart.

"Aha! and so you know me," the girl went on—for she could not have been a day older than Edith herself, Although there were lines of care and suffering upon her brilliant face—seeking the look of recognition in her eyes; "you remember how I confronted him that day when he was walking with you."

"Yes, I remember; but—"

"But that does not tell you who—or what I am, would perhaps be the better way of putting it," said the stranger, with bitter irony. "Look here; perhaps this will tell you better than any other form of introduction," she added, almost fiercely, as, with one hand, she snatched the cap off her child's head and then turned his face toward Edith.

The startled girl involuntarily uttered a cry of mingled surprise and dismay, for, in face and form and bearing, she beheld—a miniature Emil Correlli!

For a moment she was speechless, thrilled with greater loathing for the man than she had ever before experienced, as a suspicion of the truth flashed through her brain.

Then she lifted her astonished eyes to the woman, to find her regarding her with a look of mingled curiosity, hatred, and triumph.

"The boy is—his child?" Edith murmured at last, in an inquiring tone.

A slow smile crept over the mother's face as she stood for a moment looking at Edith—a smile of malice which betrayed that she gloried in seeing that the girl at last understood her purpose in bringing the little one there.

"Yes, you see—you understand," she said, at last; "any one would know that Correlli is his father."

"And you—" Edith breathed, in a scarcely audible voice, while she began to tremble with a secret hope.

"I am the child's mother—yes," the girl returned, with a look of despair in her dusky orbs.

But she was not prepared for the light of eager joy that leaped into Edith's eyes at this confession—the new life and hope that swept over her face and animated her manner until she seemed almost transformed, from the weary, spiritless appearing girl she had seemed on her entrance, into a new creature.

"Then, of course, you are Emil Correlli's wife," she cried, in a glad tone; "you have come to tell me this—to tell me that I am free from the hateful tie which I supposed bound me to him? Oh, I thank you! I thank you!"

"You thank me?"

"Yes, a thousand times."

"Ha! and you say the tie that binds you to him is hateful?" whispered the strange woman, while she studied Edith's face with mingled wonder and curiosity.

"More hateful than I can express," said Edith, with incisive bitterness.

"And you do not—love him?"

"Love him? Oh, no!"

The tone was too replete with aversion to be doubted.

"Ah, it is I who do not understand now!" exclaimed Edith's visitor, with a look of perplexity.

"Let me tell you," said the young girl, drawing nearer and speaking rapidly. "I was Mrs. Goddard's companion, and quite happy and content with my work until he—her villainous brother—came. Ah, perhaps I shall wound you if I say more," she interposed, and breaking off suddenly, as she saw her companion wince.

"No, no; go on," commanded her guest, imperatively.

"Well, Monsieur Correlli began to make love to me and to persecute me with his attentions soon after he came here. He proposed marriage to me some weeks ago, and I refused to listen to him—"

"You refused him!"

"Why, yes, certainly; I did not love him; I would not marry any one whom I could not love," Edith replied, with a little scornful curl of her lips at the astonished interruption, which had betrayed that her guest thought no girl could be indifferent to the charms of the man whom she so adored.

"He was offended," Edith resumed, "and insisted that he would not take my refusal as final. When I finally convinced him that I meant what I had said, he and his sister plotted together to accomplish their object, and make me his wife by strategy. Madam planned a winter frolic at her country residence; she wrote the play of which you have an account in that paper; she chose her characters, and it was rehearsed to perfection. At the last moment, on the evening of its presentation before her friends, she removed the two principal characters—telling me that they had been called home by a telegram—and substituted her brother and me in their places. She did not even tell me who was to take the gentleman's place—she simply said a friend; it was all done so hurriedly there was no time, apparently, for explanations. And then—oh! it is too horrible to think of!" interposed Edith, bringing her hands together with a despairing gesture, "she had that ordained minister come on the stage and legally marry us. From beginning to end it was all a fraud!"

"Stop, girl! and swear that you are telling me the truth!" cried her strange companion, as she stepped close to Edith's side, laid a violent hand upon her arm, and searched her face with a look that must have made her shrink and cower if she had been trying to deceive.

"Oh, I would give the world if it were not true!" Edith exclaimed, with an earnestness that could not be doubted—"if the last scene in that drama had never been enacted, or if I could have been warned in time of the treachery of which I was being made the victim!"

"Suppose you had been warned!" demanded her guest, still clutching her arm with painful force, "would you have dared refuse to do their bidding?"

"Would I have dared refuse?" exclaimed Edith, drawing herself haughtily erect. "No power on earth could have made me marry that man."

"I don't know! I don't know! He is rich, handsome, talented," muttered the other, regarding her suspiciously. "Will you swear that it was fraud—that you did not know you were being married to him? Do not try to lie to me," she went on, warningly. "I came here this afternoon with a heart full of bitter hatred toward you; in my soul I believe I was almost a murderess. But—if you also are the victim of a bad man's perfidy, then we have a common cause."

"I have told you only the truth," responded Edith, gravely. "Monsieur Correlli was utterly repulsive to me, and I never could have consented to marry him, under any circumstances. I know he is considered handsome—I know he is rich and talented; but all that would be no temptation to me—I could never sell myself for fortune or position. I am very sorry if you have been made unhappy because of me," she went on gently; "but I have not willfully wronged you in any way. And if you have come here to tell me that you are Monsieur Correlli's wife, you have saved me from a fate I abhorred—and I shall be—I am free! and I shall bless you as long as I live!"



CHAPTER XXII.

"I WILL RISE ABOVE MY SIN AND SHAME!"

Edith's strange visitor stood contemplating her with a look of mingled perplexity and sadness.

It was evident that she could not understand how any one could be glad to renounce a man like Emil Correlli, with the fortune and position which he could give the woman of his choice.

The two made a striking tableau as they stood there facing each other, with that beautiful child between them; for in style and coloring, they were exactly the opposite of each other.

Edith, so fair and slight, with her delicate features and golden hair, her great innocent blue eyes, graceful bearing, and cultivated manner, which plainly betrayed that she had been reared in an atmosphere of gentleness and refinement.

The other was of a far different type, yet, perhaps, not less striking and beautiful in her way.

She was of medium height, with a full, voluptuous form, a complexion of pale olive, with brilliantly scarlet lips, and eyes like "black diamonds," and hair that had almost a purple tinge in its ebon masses; her features, though far from being regular, were piquant, and when she was speaking lighted into fascinating animation with every passing emotion.

"I shall be free!" Edith murmured again with a long-drawn sigh of relief, "for of course you will assert your claim upon him, and"—with a glance at the child—"he will not dare to deny it."

"You are so anxious to be free? You would bless me for helping you to be free?" repeated her companion, studying the girl's face earnestly, questioningly.

"Ah, yes; I was almost in despair when you came in," Edith replied, shivering, and with starting tears; "now I begin to hope that my life has not been utterly ruined."

Her visitor flushed crimson, and her great black eyes flashed with sudden anger.

"My curse be upon him for all the evil he has done!" she cried, passionately. "Oh! how gladly would I break the bond that binds you to him, but—I have not the power; I have no claim upon him."

Edith regarded her with astonishment.

"No claim upon him?" she repeated, with another glance at the little one who was gazing from one to another with wondering eyes.

The mother's glance followed hers, and an expression of despair swept over her face.

"Oh, Holy Virgin, pity me!" she moaned, a blush of shame mantling her cheeks.

Then lifting her heavy eyes once more to Edith, she continued, falteringly:

"The boy is his and—mine; but—I have no legal claim upon him—I am no wife."

For a moment after this humiliating confession there was an unbroken silence in that elegant room.

Then a hot wave of sympathetic color flashed up to Edith's brow, while a look of tender, almost divine, compassion gleamed in her lovely eyes.

For the time she forgot her own wretchedness in her sympathy for her erring and more unfortunate sister—for the woman and the mother who had been outraged beyond compare.

At length she raised her hand and laid it half-timidly, but with exceeding kindness, upon her shoulder.

"I understand you now," she said, gently, "and I am very sorry."

The words were very simple and commonplace; but the tone, the look, and the gesture that accompanied them spoke more than volumes, and completely won the heart of the passionate and despairing creature before her for all time.

They also proved too much for her self-possession, and, with a moan of anguish, throwing herself upon her knees beside her child, she clasped him convulsively in her arms and burst into a flood of weeping.

"Oh! my poor, innocent baby! to think that this curse must rest upon you all your life—it breaks my heart!" she moaned, while she passionately covered his head and face with kisses. "They tell me there is a God," she went on, hoarsely, as she again struggled to her feet, "but I do not believe it—no God of love would ever create monsters like Emil Correlli, and allow them to deceive and ruin innocent girls, blackening their pure souls and turning them to fiends incarnate! Yes, I mean it," she panted, excitedly, as she caught Edith's look of horror at her irreverent and reckless expressions.

"Listen!" she continued, eagerly. "Only three years ago I was a pure and happy girl, living with my parents in my native land—fair, beautiful, sunny Italy—"

"Italy?" breathlessly interposed Edith, as she suddenly remembered that she also had been born in that far Southern clime. Then she grew suddenly pale as she caught the eyes of the little one gazing curiously into her face, and also remembered that "the curse" which his mother had but a moment before so deplored, rested upon her as well.

Involuntarily, she took his little hand, and lifting it to her lips, imprinted a soft caress upon it, at which the child smiled, showing his pretty white teeth, and murmured some fond musical term in Italian.

"You are an angel not to hate us both," said his mother, a sudden warmth in her tones, a gleam of gratitude in her dusky eyes. "But were you ever in Italy?" she added, curiously.

"Yes, when I was a little child; but I do not remember anything about it," said Edith, with a sigh. "Do not stand with the child in your arms," she added, thoughtfully. "Come, sit here, and then you can go on with what you were going to tell me."

And, with a little sense of malicious triumph, Edith pulled forward the beautiful rocker of carved ivory, and saw the woman sink wearily into it with a feeling of keen satisfaction. It seemed to her like the irony of fate that it should be thus occupied for the first time.

She would have been only too glad to heap all the beautiful clothes, jewels, and laces upon the woman also, but she felt that they did not belong to her, and she had no right to do so. Taking her little one on her knee, the young woman laid his head upon her breast, and swaying gently back and forth, began her story.

"My father was an olive grower, and owned a large vineyard besides, in the suburbs of Rome. He was a man of ample means, and took no little pride in the pretty home which he was enabled to provide for his family. My mother was a beautiful woman, somewhat above him socially, although I never knew her to refer to the fact, and I was their only child.

"Like many other fond parents who have but one upon whom to expend their love and money, they thought I must be carefully reared and educated—nothing was considered too good for me, and I had every advantage which they could bestow. I was happy—I led an ideal life until I was seventeen years of age. When carnival time came around, we all went in to Rome to join in the festivities, and there I met my fate, in the form of Emil Correlli."

"Ah! but I thought that he was a Frenchman!" interposed Edith, in surprise.

"His father was a Frenchman, but his mother was born and reared in Italy, where, in Rome, he studied under the great sculptor, Powers," her guest explained. Then she resumed: "We met just as we were both entering the church of St. Peter's. He accidently jostled me; then, as he turned to apologize, our eyes met, and from that moment my fate was sealed. I cannot tell you all that followed, dear lady, it would take too long; but, during the next three months it seemed to me as if I were living in Paradise. Before half that time had passed, Emil had confessed his love for me, and made an excuse to see me almost every day. But my parents did not approve; they objected to his attentions; his mother, they learned by some means, belonged to a noble family, and 'lords and counts should not mate with peasants,' they said."

"Then I made the fatal mistake of disobeying them and meeting my lover in secret. Ah, lady," she here interposed with a bitter sigh, "the rest is but the old story of man's deception and a maiden's blind confidence in him; and when, all too late, I discovered my error, there seemed but one thing for me to do, and that was to flee with him to America, whither he was coming to pursue his profession in a great city."

"And—did he not offer to—to marry you before you came?" queried Edith, aghast.

"No; he pretended that he dared not—he was so well-known in Rome that the secret would be sure to be discovered, he said, and then my father would separate us forever; but he promised that when we arrived in New York, he would make everything all right; therefore, I, still blindly trusting him, let him lead me whither he would.

"I was very ill during the passage, and for weeks following our arrival, and so the time slipped rapidly by without the consummation of my hopes, and though he gave me a pleasant home and everything that I wished for in the house where we lived, even allowing it to appear that I was his wife, we had not been here long before I saw that he was beginning to tire of me. I did everything I could to keep his love, I studied tirelessly to master the language of the country, and kept myself posted upon art and subjects which interested him most, in order to make myself companionable to him. Time after time I entreated him to fight the wrong he was doing me and another, who would soon come either into the shelter of his fatherhood or to inherit the stigma of a dishonored mother; but he always had some excuse with which to put me off. At last this little one came"—she said, folding the child more closely in her arms—"and I had something pure and sweet to love, even though I was heart-broken over knowing that a blight must always rest upon his life, and something to occupy the weary hours which, at times, hung so heavily upon my hands. After that Emil seemed to become more and more indifferent to me—there would be weeks at a time that I would not see him at all; I used sometimes to think that the boy was a reproach to him, and he could not bear the stings of his own conscience in his presence."

"Ah," interposed Edith, with a scornful curl of her red lips, "such men have no conscience; they live only to gratify their selfish impulses."

"Perhaps; while those they wrong live on and on, with a never-dying worm gnawing at their vitals," returned her companion, repressing a sob.

"At last," she resumed, "I began to grow jealous of him, and to spy upon his movements. I discovered that he went a great deal to one of the up-town hotels, and I sometimes saw him go out with a handsome woman, whom I afterward learned was his sister—the Mrs. Goddard, who lives here, and who visits New York several times every year. I did not mind so much when I discovered the relationship between them, although I suffered many a bitter pang to see how fond they were of each other, while I was starving for some expression of his love.

"This went on for nearly two years; then about two months ago, Emil disappeared from New York, without saying anything to me of his intentions, although he left plenty of money deposited to my account. He was always generous in that way, and insisted that Ino must have everything he wished or needed—I am sure he is fond of the child, in spite of everything. By perseverance and ceaseless inquiry, I finally learned that he had come to Boston, and I immediately followed him. I am suspicious and jealous by nature, like all my people, and that day, when I saw him walking with you, and looking at you just as he used to look at me in those old delicious days in Italy, all the passion of my nature was aroused to arms. Braving everything, I rushed over to him and denounced him for his treachery to me, also accusing him of making love to you."

"And did it seem to you that I was receiving his attentions with pleasure?" questioned Edith, with a repugnant shrug of her shoulders. "I assure you he had forced his company upon me, and I only endured it to save making a scene in the street."

"I did not stop to reason about your appearance," said the woman; "at least not further than to realize that you were very lovely, and just the style of beauty to attract Emil; but he swore to me that you were only the companion of his sister, and he had only met you on the street by accident—that you were nothing to him. He asked me to tell him where he could find me, and promised that he would come to me later. He kept his word, and has visited me every few days ever since, treating me more kindly than for a long time, but insisting that I must keep entirely out of the way of his sister. And so it came upon me like a deadly blow when I read that account of his marriage in yesterday's paper. I was wrought up to a perfect frenzy, especially when I came to the statement that Monsieur and Madam Correlli would return immediately to Boston, but leave soon after for a trip South and West, and ultimately sail for Europe. That was more than outraged nature could bear, and I vowed that I would wreak a swift and sure revenge upon you both, and so, for two days, I have haunted this house, seeking for an opportunity to gain an entrance unobserved. I saw you sitting at the window—I recognized you instantly. I believed, of course, that you were a willing bride, and imagined that if I could get in I should find you both in this room. While I watched my chance, one of the servants came to the area door to let in the gas-man, and carelessly left it ajar, while she went back with him into one of the rooms. In a moment I was in the lower hall, looking for a back stairway; if any one had found me I was going to beg a drink of water for my child. There was a door there, but it was locked; but desperation makes one keen, and I was not long in finding a key hanging up on a nail beneath a window-sill. The next instant the door was unlocked, and I on my way upstairs—"

"And the key! oh! what did you do with the key?" breathlessly interposed Edith, grasping at this unexpected chance to escape.

"I have it here, lady," said her companion, as she produced it. "I thought it might be convenient for me to go out the same way, so took possession of it."

"Ah, then the door to the back stairway is still unlocked?" breathed Edith, with trembling lips.

"Yes; I did not stop to lock it after me; I hurried straight up here, but—expecting to have a very different interview from what I have had," responded the woman, with a heavy sigh. "Now, lady, you have my story," she continued, after a moment of silence, "you can see that I have been deeply wronged, and though from a moral standpoint, I have every claim upon Emil Correlli, yet legally, I have none whatever; and, unless you can prove some flaw in that ceremony of night before last—prove that he fraudulently tricked you into a marriage with him, you are irrevocably bound to him."

Edith shivered with pain and abhorrence at these last words, but she did not respond to them in any way.

"I came here with hatred in my heart toward you," the other went on, "but I shall go away blessing you for your kindness to me; for, instead of shrinking from me, as one defiled and too depraved to be tolerated, you have held out the hand of sympathy to me and listened patiently and pityingly to the story of my wrongs."

As she concluded, she dropped her face upon the head of her child with a weary, disheartened air that touched Edith deeply.

"Will you tell me your name?" she questioned, gently, after a moment or two of silence. "Pardon me," she added, flushing, as her companion looked up sharply, "I am not curious, but I do not know how to address you."

"Giulia Fiorini. Holy Mother forgive me the shame I have brought upon it!" she returned, with a sob. "I have called him"—laying her trembling hand upon the soft, silky curls of her child—"Ino Emil."

"Thank you," said Edith, "and for your confidence in me as well. You have been greatly wronged; and if there is any justice or humanity in law, this tie, which so fetters me, shall be annulled; then, perchance, Monsieur Correlli may be persuaded to do what is right toward you.

"No, lady, I have no hope of that," said Giulia, dejectedly, "for when a man begins to tire of the woman whom he has injured he also begins to despise her, and to consider himself ill-used because she even dares to exist."

"Perhaps you would wish to repudiate him," suggested Edith, who felt that such would be her attitude toward any man who had so wronged her.

"Oh, no; much as I have suffered, I still love Emil, and would gladly serve him for the remainder of my life, if he would but honor me with his name; but I know him too well ever to hope for that—I know that he is utterly selfish and would mercilessly set his heel upon me if I should attempt to stand in the way of his purposes. There is nothing left for me but to go back to my own country, confess my sin to my parents, and hide myself from the world until I die."

"Ah! but you forget that you have your child to rear and educate, his mind and life to mold, and—try to make him a better man than his father," said Edith, with a tender earnestness, which instantly melted the injured girl to tears.

"Oh, that you should have thought of that, when I, his mother, forget my duty to him, and think only of my own unhappiness!" sobbed the conscience-stricken girl, as she hugged the wondering child closer to her breast. "Yesterday I told myself that I would send Ino to him, and then end my misery forever."

"Don't!" exclaimed Edith, sharply, her face almost convulsed with pain. "Your life belongs to God, and—this baby. Live above your trouble, Giulia; never let your darling have the pain and shame of learning that his mother was a suicide. If you have made one mistake, do not imagine that you can expiate it by committing another a hundred-fold worse. Ah! think what comfort there would be in rearing your boy to a noble manhood, and then hear him say, 'What I am my mother has made me!'"

She had spoken earnestly, appealingly, and when she ceased, the unhappy woman seized her hand and covered it with kisses.

"Oh, you have saved me!" she sobbed; "you have poured oil into my wounds. I will do as you say—I will rise above my sin and shame; and if Ino lives to be an honor to himself and the world, I shall tell him of the angel who saved us both. I am very sorry for you," she added, looking, regretfully, up at Edith; "I could almost lay down my life for you now; but—Correlli is rich—very rich, and you may, perhaps, be able to get some comfort out of life by—"

Edith started to her feet, her face crimson.

"What?" she cried, scornfully, "do you suppose that I could ever take pleasure in spending even one dollar of his money? Look there!" pointing to the elegant apparel upon the bed. "I found all those awaiting me when I came here to-day. In the dressing-case yonder there are laces, jewels, and fine raiment of every description, but I would go in rags before I would make use of a single article. I loathe the sight of them," she added, shuddering. "I should feel degraded, indeed, could I experience one moment of pleasure arrayed in them."

Suddenly she started, and looked at her watch, a wild hope animating her.

It was exactly quarter past two.

A train left for New York, via the Boston & Albany Railroad, at three o'clock.

If she could reach the Columbus avenue station, which was less than fifteen minutes' walk from Commonwealth avenue, without being missed, she would be in New York by nine o'clock, and safe, for a time at least, from the man she both hated and feared.



CHAPTER XXIII.

A SURPRISE AT THE GRAND CENTRAL STATION.

"Will you help me?" Edith eagerly inquired, turning to her companion, who had regarded her wonderingly while she repudiated the costly gifts which Emil Correlli had showered upon her.

"How can I help you, lady?" Giulia inquired, with a look of surprise.

"Call me Edith—I am only a poor, friendless girl, like yourself," she gently returned. "But I want to go away from this house immediately—I must get out of it unobserved; then I can catch a train that leaves Boston at three o'clock, for New York."

"Ah! you wish to run away from Emil!" exclaimed Giulia, her face lighting with eagerness.

"Yes—I would never own myself his wife for a single hour. I was planning, when you came in, to get away to-night when the house was quiet; but doubtless they would lock my door if I continued to be obstinate, and it would be a great deal better for me, every way, if I could go now," Edith explained.

"Yes, I will help you—I will do anything you wish," said Giulia, heartily.

"Then come!" exclaimed Edith, excitedly, "I want you to go down to him; he is in one of the rooms below—in the library, I think—a room under the one opposite this. He will be so astonished by your unexpected visit that he will be thrown off his guard, and you must manage to occupy his attention until you are sure I am well out of the house—which will be in less than ten minutes after you are in his presence—and then I shall have nothing more to fear from him."

"I will do it," said the Italian girl, rising, a look of resolve on her handsome but care-lined face.

"Thank you! thank you!" returned Edith, earnestly. "I am going straight to New York, to friends; but of course, you will not betray my plans."

"No, indeed; but do you think your friends can help you break with Emil—do you believe that ceremony can be canceled?" breathlessly inquired Giulia.

"I hope so," Edith gravely answered; "at all events, if I can but once put myself under the protection of my friends, I shall no longer fear him. I shall then try to have the marriage annulled. Perhaps, when he realizes how determined I am, he may even be willing to submit to it."

"Oh, do you think so?—do you think so?" cried Giulia, tremulously, and with hopeful eagerness.

"I will hope so," replied Edith, gravely, "and I will also hope that I may be able to do something to make you and this dear child happy once more. What a sweet little fellow he is!" she concluded, as she leaned forward and kissed him softly on the cheek, an act which brought the quick tears to his mother's eyes.

Again she seized the girl's delicate hand and carried it to her lips.

"Ah, to think! An hour ago I hated you!—now I worship you!" she cried, in an impassioned tone, a sob bursting from her trembling lips.

"You must go," said Edith, advancing to the door, and softly opening it. "I have no time to lose if I am to catch my train. Remember, the room under the one opposite this—you will easily find it. Now good-by, and Heaven bless you both."

With a look of deepest gratitude and veneration, Giulia Fiorini, her child clasped in her arms, passed out of the room and moved swiftly toward the grand staircase leading to the lower part of the house; while Edith, closing and locking the door after her, stood listening until she should reach the library, where she was sure Emil Correlli sat reading.

She heard the sweep of the girl's robes upon the stairs; then, a moment later, a stifled exclamation of mingled surprise and anger fell upon her ears, after which the library door was hastily shut, and Edith began to breathe more freely.

She hastened to put on her jacket, preparatory to leaving the house. But an instant afterward her heart leaped into her throat, as she caught the sound of the hurried opening and shutting of the library door again.

Then there came swift steps over the stairs.

Edith knew that Emil Correlli was coming to ascertain if she were safe within her room; that he feared if Giulia had succeeded in gaining an entrance there, without being discovered, she might possibly have escaped in the same way.

She moved noiselessly across the room toward the dressing-case and opened a drawer, just as there came a knock on her door.

"Is that you, Mrs. Goddard?" Edith questioned, in her usual tone of voice, though her heart was beating with great, frightened throbs.

"No; it is I," responded Emil Correlli. "I wish to speak with you a moment, Edith."

"You must excuse me just now, Mr. Correlli," the girl replied, as she rattled the stopper to one of the perfumery bottles on the dressing-case; "I am dressing, and cannot see any one just at present."

"Oh!" returned the voice from without, in a modified tone, as if the man were intensely relieved by her reply. "I beg your pardon; but when can I see you—how long will it take you to finish dressing?"

Edith glanced at the clock, and a little smile of triumph curled her lips, for she saw that the hands pointed to half-past two.

"Not more than fifteen or twenty minutes, perhaps," she returned.

"Ah, you are relenting!" said the man, eagerly. "You will come down by and by—you will dine with us this evening, Edith?" he concluded, in an appealing tone.

There was again a moment of hesitation on Edith's part, as if she were debating the question with herself; but if he could have seen her eyes, he would have been appalled by the look of fire and loathing that blazed in them.

"Mr. Correlli," she said at last, in a tone which he interpreted as one of timid concession, "I—I wish to do what is right and—I think perhaps I will come down as soon as I finish dressing."

His face lighted and flushed with triumph.

He believed that she was yielding—won over by the munificent gifts with which he had crowded her room.

"Ah! thank you! thank you!" he responded, with delight. "But take your own time, dear, and make yourself just as beautiful as possible, and I will come up for you in the course of half an hour."

He flattered himself that he would be well rid of Giulia by that time; and having assured himself that Edith was safe in her room, and, as he believed, gradually submitting to his terms, he retraced his steps downstairs, the cruel lines about his mouth hardening as he went, for he had resolved to cast off forever the girl who had become nothing but a burden and an annoyance to him.

Edith did not move until she heard him enter the library again and close the door after him.

Then, hurriedly buttoning her jacket and pinning on her hat, she took from her trunk the package which she had made up an hour before, stole softly from her room and down the back stairs to the area hall.

The outer door was closed and bolted—the gas-man having long since finished his errand and departed—and she could hear the cook and one of the maids conversing in the kitchen just across the hall.

Evidently no one had attempted to go upstairs since Giulia's entrance, consequently the key had not yet been missed nor the door discovered to be unlocked.

Cautiously slipping the bolt to the street door, Edith quickly passed out, closing it noiselessly after her.

Another moment she was in the street, speeding with swift, light steps across the park.

Then, bending her course through Dartmouth street, she came to a narrow, crooked way called Buckingham street, which led her directly out upon Columbus avenue, when, turning to the left, she soon came to the station known by the same name.

Here she had ten minutes to wait, after purchasing her ticket, and the uneasiness with which she watched the slowly moving hands upon the clock in the gloomy waiting-room may be imagined.

Her waiting was over at last, and, exactly on time, the train came thundering to the station.

Edith quickly boarded it, then sank weak and trembling upon the nearest empty seat, her heart beating so rapidly that she panted with every breath.

Then the train began to move, and, with a prayer of thankfulness over her escape, the excited girl leaned back against the cushion and gave herself up to rest, knowing that she could not now be overtaken before arriving in New York.

This feeling of security did not last long, however, and she was filled with dismay as she thought that Emil Correlli would doubtless discover her flight in the course of half an hour, if he had not already done so, when he would probably surmise that she would go immediately to New York and so telegraph to have her arrested upon her arrival there.

This was a difficulty which she had not foreseen.

What should she do?—how could she circumvent him? how protect herself and defy his authority over her?

A bright idea flashed into her mind.

She would telegraph to Royal Bryant at the first stop made by the train, ask him to meet her upon her arrival, and thus secure his protection against any plot that Emil Correlli might lay for her.

The first stopping-place she knew was Framingham, a small town about twenty miles from Boston.

The first time the conductor came through the car she asked him for a Western Union slip, when she wrote the following message and addressed it to Royal Bryant's office on Broadway:

"Shall arrive at Grand Central Station, via. B. & A. R. R., at nine o'clock. Do not fail to meet me. Important.

"EDITH ALLANDALE."

When the conductor came back again, she gave this to him, with the necessary money, and asked if he would kindly forward it from Framingham for her.

He cheerfully promised to do so. Then, feeling greatly relieved, Edith settled herself contentedly for a nap, for she was very weary and heavy-eyed from the long strain upon her nerves and lack of sleep.

She did not wake for more than three hours, when she found that daylight had faded, and that the lamps had been lighted in the car.

At New Haven she obtained a light lunch from a boy who was crying his viands through the train, and when her hunger was satisfied she straightened her hat and drew on her gloves, knowing that another two hours would bring her to her destination.

Then she began to speculate upon possible and impossible things, and to grow very anxious regarding her safety upon her arrival in New York.

Perhaps Royal Bryant had not received her message.

He might have left his office before it arrived; maybe the officials at Framingham had even neglected to send it; or Mr. Bryant might have been out of town.

What could she do if, upon alighting from the train, some burly policeman should step up to her and claim her as his prisoner?

She had thus worked herself up to a very nervous and excited state by the time the lights of the great metropolis could be seen in the distance; her face grew flushed and feverish, her eyes were like two points of light, her temples throbbed, her pulses leaped, and her heart beat with great, frightened throbs.

The train had to make a short stop where one road crossed another just before entering the city, and the poor girl actually grew faint and dizzy with the fear that an officer might perhaps board the train at that point.

Almost as the thought flashed through her brain, the car door opened and a man entered, when a thrill of pain went quivering through every nerve, prickling to her very finger-tips.

A second glance showed her that it was a familiar form, and she almost cried out with joy as she recognized Royal Bryant and realized that she was—safe!

He saw her immediately and went directly to her, his gleaming eyes telling a story from his heart which instantly sent the rich color to her brow.

"Miss Allandale!" he exclaimed, in a low, eager tone, as he clasped her outstretched hand. "I am more than glad to see you once again."

"Then you received my telegram," she said, with a sigh of relief.

"Yes, else I should not be here," he smilingly returned; "but I came very near missing it. I was just on the point of leaving the office when the messenger-boy brought it in. I suppose our advertisement is to be thanked for your appearance in New York thus opportunely."

"Not wholly," Edith returned, with some embarrassment. "If it had been that alone which called me here, I need not have telegraphed you. I saw it only yesterday; but my chief reason for coming hither is that I am a fugitive."

"A fugitive!" repeated her companion, in surprise. "Ah, yes, I wondered a little over that word 'important' in your message. It strikes me," he added, smiling significantly down upon her, "that you left New York in very much the same manner." "Yes," she faltered, flushing rosily.

"From whom and what were you fleeing, Edith? Surely not from one who would have been only too glad to shield you from every ill?" said the young man, in a tenderly reproachful tone, the import of which there was no mistaking.

She shot one swift glance into his face and saw that his eyes were luminous with the great love that was throbbing in his manly heart, and with an inward start of exceeding joy she dropped her lids again, but not before he had read in the look and the tell-tale flush that flooded cheek, brow, and neck, that his affection was returned.

"I will forgive you, dear, if you will be kind to me in the future," he whispered, taking courage from her sweet shyness and bashfulness. "And now tell me why you are a fugitive from Boston, for your telegram was dated from that city."

Thus recalled to herself, and a realization of her cruel situation, Edith shivered, and a deadly paleness banished the rosy blushes from her cheeks.

"I will," she murmured, "I will tell you all about the dreadful things that have happened to me; but not here," she added, with an anxious glance around. "Will you take me to some place where I shall be safe?" she continued, appealingly. "I have no place to go unless it is to some hotel, and I shrink from a public house."

"My child, why are you trembling so?" the young man inquired, as he saw she was shaking from head to foot. "I am very glad," he added, "that I was inspired to board the train at the crossing, and thus can give you my protection in the confusion of your arrival."

"I am glad, too; it was very thoughtful of you," said Edith, appreciatively; "but—but I am also going to need your help again in a legal way."

He started slightly at this; but replied, cheerfully:

"You shall have it; I am ready to throw myself heart and hand between you and any trouble of whatever nature. Now about a safe place for you to stay while you are in the city. I have a married cousin who lives on West Fortieth street; we are the best of friends and she will gladly entertain you at my request, until you can make other arrangements."

"But to intrude upon an entire stranger—" began Edith, looking greatly disturbed.

"Nellie will not seem like a stranger to you, two minutes after you have been introduced to her," the young man smilingly returned. "She is the dearest, sweetest little cousin a man ever had, and she has an equal admiration for your humble servant. She will thank me for bringing you to her, and I am sure that you will be happy with her. But why do you start so?—why are you so nervous?" he concluded, as she sprang from her seat, when the train stopped, and looked wildly about her.

"I am afraid," she gasped.

"Afraid of what?" he urged, with gentle persistence.

"Of a man who has been persecuting me," she panted, the look of anxious fear still in her eyes. "I ran away from him to-day, and I have been afraid, all the way to New York, that he would telegraph ahead of the train, and have me stopped—that was why I sent the message to you."

"I am very glad you did," said the young man, gravely. "But, Edith, pray do not look so terrified; you are sure to attract attention with that expression on your face. Calm yourself and trust me," he concluded, as he took her hand and laid it upon his arm.

"I do—I will," she said; but her fingers closed over his with a spasmodic clasp which told him how thoroughly wrought up she was.

"Have you a trunk?" he inquired, as they moved toward the door, the train having now entered the Grand Central Station.

"No; I left everything but a few necessary articles—I can send for it later by express," she responded.

The young man assisted her from the train, then replacing her hand upon his arm, was about to signal for a carriage when they were suddenly confronted by a policeman and brought to a halt in the most summary manner.

"Sorry to trouble you, sir," said the man, speaking in a business-like tone to Mr. Bryant, "but I have orders to take this lady into custody."



CHAPTER XXIV.

A SAD STORY DISCLOSED TO AN EAGER LISTENER.

Royal Bryant was not very much surprised by this abrupt information and interference with their movements.

What Edith had said to him, just before getting out of the train, had suggested the possibility of such an incident, consequently he was not thrown off his guard, as he might otherwise have been.

At the same time he flushed up hotly, and, confronting the officer with flashing eyes, remarked, with freezing hauteur:

"I do not understand you, sir. I think you have made a mistake; this lady is under my protection."

"But I have orders to intercept a person answering to this lady's description," returned the policeman, but speaking with not quite his previous assurance.

"By whose orders are you acting, if I may inquire?" demanded the young man.

"A Boston party."

"And the lady's name, if you please?"

"No name is given, sir; but she is described as a girl of about twenty, pure blonde, very pretty, slight and graceful in figure, wearing a dark-brown dress and jacket and a brown hat with black feathers. She will be alone and has no baggage," said the policeman, reading from the telegram which he had received some two hours previous.

Mr. Bryant smiled loftily.

"Your description hits the case in some respects, I admit," he observed, with an appreciative glance at Edith, who stood beside him outwardly calm and collected, though the hand that rested upon his arm was tense with repressed emotion, "but in others it is wide of its mark. You have her personal appearance, in a general way, and the dress happens to correspond in everything but the hat. You will observe that the lady wears a black hat with a scarlet wing instead of a brown one with black feathers. She did not arrive alone, either, as you perceive, we got off the train together."

The officer looked perplexed.

"What may your name be, sir, if you please?" he inquired, with more civility than he had yet shown.

"Royal Bryant, of the firm of Bryant & Co., Attorneys. Here is my card, and you can find me at my office between the hours of nine and four any day you may wish," the young man frankly returned, as he slipped the bit of pasteboard into the man's hand.

"And will you swear that you are not aiding and abetting this young lady in trying to escape the legal authority of friends in Boston?" questioned the policeman, as he sharply scanned the faces before him.

"Ahem! I was not aware that I was being examined under oath," responded the young lawyer, with quiet irony. "However, I am willing to give you my word of honor, as a gentleman, that this lady is accountable to no one in Boston for her movements."

"Well, I reckon I have made a mistake; but where in thunder, then, is the girl I'm after?" muttered the officer, with an anxious air.

"Does your telegram authorize you to arrest a runaway from Boston?" Mr. Bryant inquired, with every appearance of innocence.

"Yes, a girl from the smart set, who don't want any scandal over the matter," replied the man, referring again to the yellow slip in his hand.

"But she may not have come by the Boston and Albany line," objected Mr. Bryant. "There are several trains that leave the city from different stations about the same time; you may find your bird on a later train, Mr. Officer," he concluded, in a reassuring tone.

"That is so," was the thoughtful response.

"Then I suppose you will not care to detain us any longer," Mr. Bryant courteously remarked. "Come, Edith," he added, turning with a smile to his companion, and then he started to move on.

"Hold on! I'm blamed if I don't think I'm right after all," said the policeman, in a tone of conviction, as he again placed himself in their path.

Royal Bryant flashed a look of fire at him.

"Have you a warrant for the lady's arrest?" he sternly demanded.

"No; I am simply ordered to detain her until her friends can come on and take charge of her," the man reluctantly admitted, while he heaved a sigh for the fat plum that had been promised him in the event of his "bagging his game."

"Then, if you are not legally authorized in this matter, I would advise you, as a friend, to make no mistake," gravely returned the young lawyer. "You might heap up wrath for yourself; while, if your patrons are anxious to avoid a scandal, you are taking the surest way to create one by interfering with the movements of myself and my companion. This young lady is my friend, and, as I have already told you, under my protection; as her attorney, also, I shall stand no nonsense, I assure you."

"Beg pardon, sir; but I'm only trying to obey orders," apologized the official. "But would you have the goodness to tell me this young lady's name."

At any other time and under any other circumstances Mr. Bryant would have resented this inquiry as an impertinence; but it occurred to him that an appearance of frankness and compliance might save them further inconvenience.

"Certainly," he responded, with the utmost cheerfulness, "this lady's name is Miss Edith Allandale and she is the daughter of the late Albert Allandale, of Allandale & Capen, bankers."

"It is all right, sir," said the officer, at last convinced that he had made a mistake, for Allandale & Capen had been a well-known firm to him. "You can go on," he added, touching his hat respectfully, "and I beg pardon for troubling you."

Without more ado he turned away, while Edith and her escort passed on, but the frightened girl was now trembling in every limb.

"Calm yourself, dear," whispered her companion, involuntarily using the affectionate term, as he hastened to lead her into the fresh air. "You are safe, and I will soon have you in a place where your enemies will never think of looking for you."

He beckoned to the driver of a carriage as he spoke, and in another minute was assisting Edith into it; then, taking a seat beside her, he gave the man his order, and as the vehicle moved away in the darkness, the poor girl began to breathe freely for the first time since alighting from the train.

Mr. Bryant gave her a little time to recover herself, and then asked her to tell him all her trouble.

This she was only too glad to do; and, beginning with the death of her mother, she poured out the whole story of the last three months to him, dwelling mostly, however, upon the persecutions of Emil Correlli and the climax to which they had recently attained.

He listened attentively throughout, but interrupting her, now and then, to ask a pertinent question as it occurred to him.

"I was in despair," Edith finally remarked in conclusion, "until yesterday, when, by the merest chance, my eye fell upon that advertisement of yours and it flashed upon me that the best course for me to pursue would be to come directly to New York and seek your aid; I felt sure you would be as willing to help me as upon a previous occasion."

"Certainly I would—you judged me rightly," the young man responded, "but"—bending nearer to her and speaking in a slightly reproachful tone—"tell me, please, what was your object in leaving New York so unceremoniously?"

He felt the slight shock which went quivering through her at the question, and smiled to himself at her hesitation before she replied:

"I—I thought it was best," she faltered at last.

"Why for the 'best'?—for you or for me? Tell me, please," he pleaded, gently.

"For—both," she replied in a scarcely audible tone that thrilled him and made his face gleam with sudden tenderness.

"I—you will pardon me if I speak plainly—I thought it very strange," he remarked gravely. "It almost seemed to me as if you were fleeing from me, for I fully expected that you would return to the office on Thursday morning, as I had appointed. Had I done anything to offend you or drive you away—Edith?"

"No—oh, no," she quickly returned.

"I am very glad to know that," said her companion, a slight tremulousness in his tones, "for I have feared that I might have betrayed my feelings in a way to wound or annoy you; for, Edith—I can no longer keep the secret—I had learned to love you with all my heart during that week that you spent in my office, and I resolved, on parting with you at the carriage, the morning of your release, to confess the fact to you as soon as you returned to the office, ask you to be my wife and thus let me stand between you and the world for all time. Nay,"—as Edith here made a little gesture as if to check him—"I must make a full confession now, while I have the opportunity. I was almost in despair when I received your brief note telling me that you had left the city and without giving me the slightest clew to your destination. All my plans, all my fond anticipations, were dashed to the earth, dear. I loved you so I felt that I could not bear the separation. I love you still, my darling—my heart leaped for joy this afternoon when I received your telegram. And now, while I have you here all to myself, I have dared to tell you of it, and beg you to tell me if there is any hope for me? Can you love me in return!—will you be my wife—?"

"Oh, hush! you forget the wretched tie that binds me to that villain in Boston," cried Edith, and there was such keen pain in her voice that tears involuntarily started to her companion's eyes, while at the same time both words and tone thrilled him with sweetest hope.

"No tie binds you to him, dear," he whispered, tenderly. "Do you think I would have opened my heart to you thus if I had really believed you to be the wife of another?"

"Oh, do you mean that the marriage was not legal? Oh, if I could believe that!" Edith exclaimed, with a note of such eager hope in her tones that it almost amounted to the confession her lover had solicited from her.

But he yearned to hear it in so many words from her lips.

"Tell me, Edith, if I can prove it to you, will there be hope for me?" he whispered.

Ought she to answer him as her heart dictated? Dare she confess her love with that stigma of her mother's early mistake resting upon her? she asked herself, in anguish of spirit.

She sat silent and miserable, undecided what to do.

If she acknowledged her love for him, without telling him, and he should afterward discover the story of her birth, might he not feel that she had taken an unfair advantage of him.

And yet, how could she ever bring herself to disclose the shameful secret of that sad, sad tragedy which had occurred twenty years previous in Rome?

"I—dare not tell you," she murmured at last.

The young man started, then bent eagerly toward her.

"You 'dare' not tell me!" he cried, joyfully. "Darling, I am answered already! But why do you hesitate to open your heart to me?"

A sudden resolve took possession of her; she would tell him the whole truth, let come what might.

"I will not," she said. "I have a sad story to tell you; but first, explain to me what you meant when you said that no tie binds me to that man?"

"I meant that that marriage was simply a farce, in spite of the sacrilegious attempt of your enemies to legalize it," said the young lawyer, gravely.

"Can that be possible?" sighed Edith, her voice tremulous with joy.

"I will prove it to you. You have told me that this man Correlli lived with that Italian woman here in New York for two years or more."

"Yes."

"Do you know whether he allowed her to be known by his name?"

"No; but she told me that he allowed her to appear as his wife in the house where they lived."

"Well, then, if that can be proven—and I have not much doubt about the matter—the girl, by the laws of New York, which decree that if a couple live together in this State as husband and wife, they are such—this girl, I say, is the legal wife of Emil Correlli, consequently he can lay no claim to you without making himself liable to prosecution for the crime of bigamy."

"Are you sure?" breathed Edith, and almost faint from joy, in view of this blessed release from a fate which to her would have been worse than death.

"So sure, dear, that I have nothing to fear for your future, regarding your connection with this man, and everything to hope for regarding your happiness and mine, if you will but tell me that you love me," her lover returned, as he boldly captured the hand that lay alluringly near him.

She did not withdraw it from his clasp.

It was so sweet to feel herself beloved and safe, under the protection of this true-hearted man, that a feeling of restfulness and content swept over her, and for the moment every other was absorbed by this.

Still, Royal Bryant realized that she had some reason for hesitating to acknowledge her affection for him, and after a moment of silence he said, gently:

"Forgive my impatience, dear, and tell me the 'sad story' to which you referred a little while ago."

A heavy sigh escaped Edith.

"You will be surprised to learn," she began, "that Mr. and Mrs. Allandale were not my own parents—that I was their adopted daughter."

"Indeed! I am surprised!" exclaimed Mr. Bryant.

"I did not discover the fact, however," the young girl pursued, "until the night after my mother's burial."

And then she proceeded to relate all that had occurred in connection with the box of letters which Mrs. Allandale had desired, when dying, to be burned.

She told of her subsequent examination of them, especially of those signed "Belle," and the story which they had revealed. How the young girl had left her home and parents to flee to Italy with the man whom she loved; how she had discovered, later, that her supposed marriage with him was a sham; how, soon after the birth of her child—Edith—her husband had deserted her for another, leaving her alone and unprotected in that strange land.

She related how, in her despair, her mother had resolved to die, and pleaded with her friend, Mrs. Allandale, to take her little one and rear it as her own, thus securing to her a happy home and life without the possibility of ever discovering the stigma attached to her birth or the cruel fate of her mother.

Royal Bryant listened to the pathetic tale without once interrupting the fair narrator, and Edith's heart sank more and more in her bosom as she proceeded, and feared that she was so shocking him by these revelations that his affection for her would die with this expose of her secret.

But he still held her hand clasped in his; and when, at the conclusion of her story, she gently tried to withdraw it, his fingers closed more firmly over hers, when, bending still nearer to her, he questioned, in fond, eager tones:

"Was this the reason of your leaving New York so abruptly last December?"

"Yes."

"Was it because you loved me and could not trust yourself to meet me day after day without betraying the fact when you feared that the knowledge of your birth might become a barrier between us? Tell me, my darling, truly!"

"Yes," Edith confessed; "but how could you guess it—how could you read my heart so like an open book?"

The young man laughed out musically, and there was a ring of joyous triumph in the sound.

"'Tis said that 'love is blind,'" he said, "but mine was keen to read the signs I coveted, and I believed, even when you were in your deepest trouble, that you were beginning to love me, and that I should eventually win you."

"Why! did you begin to—" Edith began, and then checked herself in sudden confusion.

"Did I begin to plan to win you so far back as that?" he laughingly exclaimed, and putting his own interpretation upon her half-finished sentence. "My darling, I began to love you and to wish for you even before your first day's work was done for me."



CHAPTER XXV.

A NEW CHARACTER IS INTRODUCED.

"And now, love," the eager wooer continued, as he dropped the hand he had been holding and drew the happy girl into his arms, "you will give yourself to me—you will give me the right to stand between you and all future care or trouble?"

"Then you do not mind what I have just told you?" questioned Edith, timidly.

"Not in the least, only so far as it occasions you unhappiness or anxiety," unhesitatingly replied the young man. "You are unscathed by it—the sin and the shame belong alone to the man who ruined the life of your mother. You are my pearl, my fair lily, unspotted by any blight, and I should be unworthy of you, indeed, did I allow what you have told me to prejudice me in the slightest degree. Now tell me, Edith, that henceforth there shall be no barrier between us—tell me that you love me."

"How can I help it?" she murmured, as with a flood of ineffable joy sweeping into her soul she dropped her bright head upon his breast and yielded to his embrace.

"And will you be my wife?"

"Oh, if it is possible—if I can be," she faltered. "Are you sure that I am not already bound?"

"Leave all that to me—do not fret, even for one second, over it," her lover tenderly returned. Then he added, more lightly: "I am so sure, sweetheart, that to-morrow I shall bring you a letter which will proclaim to all whom it may concern, that henceforth you belong to me."

He lifted her face when he ceased speaking, and pressed his first caress upon her lips.

A little later he inquired:

"And have you no clue to the name of your parents?"

"No; all the clue that I have is simply the name of 'Belle' that was signed to the letters of which I have told you," Edith replied, with a regretful sigh.

"It is perhaps just as well, dear, after all," said her lover, cheerfully; "if you knew more, and should ever chance to meet the man who so wronged your mother, it might cause you a great deal of unhappiness."

"I have not a regret on his account," said Edith, bitterly; "but I would like to know something about my mother's early history and her friends. I have only sympathy and love in my heart for her, in spite of the fact that she erred greatly in leaving her home as she did, and, worse than all, in taking her own life."

"Poor little woman!" said Royal Bryant, with gentle sympathy; "despair must have turned her brain—she was more sinned against than sinning. But girls do not realize what a terrible mistake they are making when they allow men to persuade them to elope, leave their homes and best friends, and submit to a secret marriage. No man of honor would ever make such proposals to any woman—no man is worthy of any pure girl's love who will ask such a sacrifice on her part; and, in nine cases out of ten, I believe nothing but misery results from such a step."

"As in the case of poor Giulia Fiorini," remarked Edith, sadly. "But maybe she will be somewhat comforted when she discovers that she is Emil Correlli's legal wife."

"I fear that such knowledge will be but small satisfaction to her," her companion responded, "for if she should take measures to compel him to recognize the tie, he would doubtless rebel against the decision of the court; and, if she still loves him as you have represented, he would make her very wretched. However, he can be forced to make generous settlements, which will enable her to live comfortably and educate her child."

"And he will be entitled to his father's name, will he not?" inquired Edith, eagerly; "that would comfort her more than anything else."

"Yes, if he has ever acknowledged her as his wife, or allowed it to be assumed that she was, the child is entitled to the name," returned her lover. Then, as the carriage stopped, he added: "But here we are, my darling and I am sure you must be very weary after your long journey."

"Yes, I am tired, but very, very happy," the fair girl replied, looking up into his face with a sigh of content.

He smiled fondly upon her as he led her up the steps of a modest but pretty house, between the draperies at the windows of which there streamed a cheerful light.

"Well, we will soon have you settled in a cozy room where you can rest to your heart's content," he remarked, and at the same time touching the electric button by his side.

"Really, Mr. Bryant, I cannot help feeling guilty to intrude upon an entire stranger at this time of night," Edith observed, in a troubled tone.

"You need not, dear, for I assure you Nellie will be delighted; but"—bending over her with a roguish laugh—"Mr. Bryant does not enjoy being addressed with so much formality by his fiancee. The name I love best—Roy—my mother gave me when I was a boy, and I want always to hear it from your lips after this."

A servant admitted them just at that moment, and upon responding to Mr. Bryant's inquiry, said that Mrs. Morrell was at home, and ushered them at once to her pretty parlor.

Presently the young hostess—a lady of perhaps twenty-five years—made her appearance and greeted her cousin With great cordiality.

"You know I am always glad to see you, Roy," she said, giving him both her hands and putting up her red lips for a cousinly kiss.

"I know you always make a fellow feel very welcome," said the young man, smiling. "And, Nellie, this is Miss Edith Allandale; she has just arrived from Boston, and I am going to ask you to receive her as your guest for a few days," he concluded, thus introducing Edith.

Mrs. Morrell turned smilingly to the beautiful girl.

"Miss Allandale is doubly welcome, for her own sake, as well as yours," was her gracious response, as she clasped Edith's hand, and if she experienced any surprise at thus having an utter stranger thrust upon her hospitality at that hour, she betrayed none, but proceeded at once to help her remove her hat and wraps.

Tears sprang to the eyes of the homeless girl at this cordial reception, and her lips quivered with repressed emotion as she thanked the gentle lady for it.

"What was that Roy was saying—that you have come from Boston this afternoon?" queried Mrs. Morrell, hastening to cover her embarrassment by changing the subject. "Then you must be nearly famished, and you must have a lunch before you go to rest."

"Pray, do not trouble yourself—" Edith began.

"Please let me—I like such 'trouble,' as you are pleased to term it," smilingly interposed the pretty hostess; and with a bright nod and a hurried "excuse me," she was gone before Edith could make further objections.

"Nellie is the most hospitable little woman in the universe," Mr. Bryant remarked, as the door closed after her; "she is never so happy as when she is feeding the hungry or making somebody comfortable."

Fifteen minutes later she reappeared, a lovely flush on her round cheeks, her eyes bright with the pleasure she experienced in doing a kind act for the young stranger, toward whom she had been instantly attracted.

"Come, now," she said, holding out a hand to her, "and I know Roy will join us—he never yet refused a cup of tea of my own brewing."

"You are right, Nellie," smilingly replied that gentleman; "and I believe I am hungry, in spite of my hearty dinner at six o'clock. A ride over the pavements of New York will prepare almost any one for an extra meal. I only hope you have a slice of Aunt Janes's old-fashioned gingerbread for me."

Mrs. Morrell laughed out musically at this last remark.

"I never dare to be without it," she retorted, "for you never fail to ask for it. This cousin of mine, Miss Allandale, is always hungry when he comes to see me, and is never satisfied to go away without his slice of gingerbread. Perhaps," she added, shooting a roguish glance from one face to the other, for she had been quick to fathom their relations, "you will some time like to have mamma's recipe for it."

A conscious flush mantled Edith's cheek at this playful thrust, while the young lawyer gave vent to a hearty laugh of amusement in which a certain joyous ring betrayed to the shrewd little woman that she had not fired her shot amiss.

Then she led them into her home-like dining-room, where a table was laid for three, and where, over a generous supply of cold chicken, delicious bread and butter, home-made preserves, and the much lauded gingerbread, the trio spent a social half-hour, and Edith felt a sense of rest and content such as she had not experienced since leaving her Fifth avenue home, more than two years previous.

As soon as the meal was finished, Mrs. Morrell, who saw how weary and heavy-eyed the fair girl appeared, remarked to her cousin, with a pretty air of authority, that she was "going to carry her guest off upstairs to bed immediately."