The Masked Bridal Part 32

"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.

"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. G.o.ddard'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 rehea.r.s.ed to perfection. At the last moment, on the evening of its presentation before her friends, she removed the two princ.i.p.al characters--telling me that they had been called home by a telegram--and subst.i.tuted 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 circ.u.mstances. 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.