Part 33 (1/2)
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 ma.s.ses; her features, though far from being regular, were piquant, and when she was speaking lighted into fascinating animation with every pa.s.sing emotion.
”I shall be free!” Edith murmured again with a long-drawn sigh of relief, ”for of course you will a.s.sert 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, s.h.i.+vering, 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, pa.s.sionately. ”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, compa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sionately covered his head and face with kisses. ”They tell me there is a G.o.d,” she went on, hoa.r.s.ely, as she again struggled to her feet, ”but I do not believe it--no G.o.d 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 grat.i.tude 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.