Part 32 (1/2)

”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 hoa.r.s.e, pa.s.sionate 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 s.h.i.+ver with a nameless horror. ”Who am I, indeed? Let me a.s.sure 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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.