Part 56 (1/2)
”Oh!--”
It was a sharp cry of agony that burst from Isabel Stewart's lips.
”Oh, why did she keep them?” she went on, wildly; ”how could she have been so unwise? Why--why did she not destroy them?”
At these words a light so eager, so beautiful, so tender that it seemed to transfigure her, suddenly illumined Edith's face, for they confirmed, beyond a doubt, the suspicion and hope that had been creeping into her heart.
”Tell me--are you that 'Belle'?” she whispered, bending nearer to her with gleaming eyes.
”Oh, do not ask me!” cried the unhappy woman, a bitter sob escaping her.
She had never dreamed of anything so dreadful as that those fatal letters would fall into the hands of her child, to prejudice her and make her shrink from her with aversion.
She had planned, if she was ever so fortunate as to find her, and had to reveal her history to her, to smooth over all that would be likely to shock her--that she would never confess to her how despair had driven her to the verge of that one crime upon which she now looked back with unspeakable horror.
The thought that this beautiful girl knew all, and believed the worst--as she could not fail to do, she reasoned, after reading the crude facts mentioned in those letters--filled her with shame and grief: for how could she ever eradicate those first impressions, and win the love she so craved?
Thus she was wholly unprepared for what followed immediately upon her indirect acknowledgment of her ident.i.ty.
The gentle girl, her expressive face radiant with mingled joy, love, sympathy, slipped both arms around her companion's waist, and dropping her head upon her shoulder, murmured, fondly:
”Ah, I am sure you are!--I am sure that I have found my mother, and--I am almost too happy to live.”
”Child! my own darling! Is it possible that you can thus open your heart of hearts to me?” sobbed the astonished woman, as she clasped the slight form to her in a convulsive embrace.
”Oh, yes--yes; I have longed for you, with longing unspeakable, ever since I knew,” Edith murmured, tremulously.
”Longed for me? Ah, I never dared to hope that Heaven could be so kind. I feared, love, that you would despise me, as a weak and willful woman, even after I should tell you all my story, with its extenuating circ.u.mstances; but now, while knowing and believing only the worst, you take me into the arms of your love, and own me--your mother!”
She broke down utterly at this point, and both, clasped in each other's embrace, sobbed in silent sympathy for a few moments.
”Well, dearest, this will never do,” Mrs. Stewart at last exclaimed, as she lifted her face and smiled tenderly upon Edith; ”we must at least compose ourselves long enough to make our adieus to our hostess; then I am going to take you home with me, to have all the story of our tangled past unraveled and explained. Come, let us sit down for a few moments, until we get rid of the traces of our tears, and you shall tell me how you happened to be in Boston under the name of Edith Allen.”
She drew her toward a couch as she spoke, and there Edith related how she had happened to meet the G.o.ddard's on the train, between New York and Boston, and was engaged to act as madam's companion, and how also the mistake regarding her name had occurred.
”And were you happy with them, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Stewart, regarding her curiously.
The fair girl flushed.
”Indeed I was not,” she replied, ”I think they were the strangest people I ever met.”
Almost as she spoke the door of the reception-room opened, and Gerald G.o.ddard himself appeared upon the threshold.
He was pale to ghastliness, and looked years older than when Edith had seen him in the drawing-room a few minutes previous.
”Pardon me this intrusion, Miss--Edith,” he began, shrinkingly, while he searched both faces before him with despairing eyes; ”but I am about to leave, and I wished to give you this note before I went. If, after reading it, you should care to communicate with me, you can address me at the Murry Hill Hotel.”
He laid the missive upon a table near the door, then, with a bow, withdrew, leaving the mother and daughter alone again.
”That was Mr. G.o.ddard,” Edith explained to her companion, as she arose to take the letter; but without a suspicion that the two had ever met before, or that the man was her own father--the ”monster” who had so wronged her beautiful mother.