"I am sure that her husband proved to be negligent of and unkind to her," she murmured, "and that she repented her rashness in leaving her home and friends. Oh, I wonder why girls will be so foolish and headstrong as to go directly contrary to the advice of those who love them best, and run away with men of whom they know comparatively nothing!"
With a sigh of regret for the unfortunate wife, of whom she had been reading, she unfolded the letter in her hands and began to read, little dreaming what strange things she was to learn from it.
"Oh, Edith darling," it began, "how can I tell you?—how can I write of the terrible calamity that has overtaken me? My heart is broken—my life is ruined, and all because I would not heed those who loved me, and who, I now realize, were my best and kindest counselors. I could bear it for myself, perhaps—I could feel that it was but a just judgment upon me for my obstinacy and unfilial conduct, and so drag out my weary existence in submission to the inevitable; but when I think of my innocent babe—my lovely Edith—your namesake! oh! I would never have had her christened thus, I could not have insulted you so, had I known! I feel almost inclined to doubt the justice and love of God—if, indeed, there is a God."
The letter here looked as if the writer must have been overcome with her wretchedness, and wept tears of bitter despair, for it was badly blurred and defaced.
But Edith, her face now absolutely colorless, read eagerly on.
"I cannot bear it and live," the writer resumed, "and so—I am going to—die. Edith, my husband—no, my betrayer, I ought rather to say—has deserted me! He has gone to Florence with a beautiful Italian countess, who is also very rich, and is living with her there in her elegant palace, just outside the city. He has long been attentive to her, but I never dreamed how far matters had gone until yesterday, when I came upon them, unawares, in Everard's studio, and heard him tell her how he loved her—that 'I was not his wife, only his ——' I cannot write the vile word that makes my flesh creep with horror. Then I learned of his base conduct to me, whom, as he expressed it, he 'had cleverly deceived, and coaxed to run away with him to while away his solitude during his sojourn in a strange country.' It is a wonder that I did not drop dead where I stood—slain by the dreadful truth; but the wicked lovers did not dream of being overheard, and so I listened to the whole of their vile plot and then stole away to try and decide upon a course of action. When Everard came home, I charged him with his perfidy. Then—pity me, Edith—he boldly told me that he was weary of me; that he would pay me a handsome sum of money and I might take my child and go back to my parents! Oh! I cannot go into details, or tell you what I have suffered—no one will ever know that but God! Why, oh, why does He permit such evil to exist? He does not—there is no God! there is no God!"
There was a huge blot here, as if the pen had fallen from the fingers that had dared to deny the existence of Deity; then the missive was resumed in a different tone, as if a long interval of thought had intervened.
"Edith, I am calmer now, and I am going to ask a great favor of you. You are happily married, you have a noble husband and abundant means, and you know we once pledged ourselves to befriend each other, if either should ever find herself in trouble. Presuming upon that pledge, I am going to ask if you will take my darling, my poor innocent little waif, bring her up as your own, and never let her know anything about the stain that rests upon her birth? She is pure; she is not to blame for the sins of her parents, and I cannot bear the thought of her growing up to learn of her heritage of shame, as she would be sure to do if I should live and rear her as my child. Your last letter tells me that you will be in Rome in less than a fortnight. I cannot meet you—I can never again meet any one whom I have known; and so, Edith—I am going to die. I give my child to you—I believe you will not refuse my last request—and you will find her, with the woman who nursed me when she was born, at No. 2 Via del Vecchia. The woman has my instructions—she believes that I am only going away on a little trip with my husband; but you will show her this letter, and prove to her that you have authority to take the child away. When you go home, you will take her with you, as your own, and no one need ever know that she is not your own. Do not ever reveal the truth to her; let her grow up happy and care-free, like other girls who are of honorable birth; and if the dead can watch over and shield the living, you and yours shall be so shielded and watched over by your lost but still loving. Belle."
"She was my mother! I am that child of shame!" came hoarsely from Edith's bloodless lips as she finished reading that dreadful letter.
Then the paper slipped from her nerveless fingers, her head dropped unconsciously upon the table before her, and she knew nothing more until, long afterward, when she awoke from her swoon to find her lamp gone out and the room growing cold, while her heart felt as if it had been paralyzed in her bosom.
CHAPTER VII.
TWO NEW ACQUAINTANCES.
Edith, when consciousness returned, had not a doubt that the letters, which she had been reading, had been penned by the hand of her own mother; that she was that little baby who had been born in Rome—that child of shame whose father had so heartlessly deserted it; whose mother, her brain turned by her suffering and wrongs, had planned to take her own life, rather than live to taint her little one's future with the shadow of her own disgrace.
The knowledge of this seemed to blight, as with a lightning flash, every hope of her life.
She groped her way to the bed, for she was becoming benumbed with the cold, and threw herself upon it, utterly wretched, utterly hopeless. For hours she lay there in a sort of stupor, conscious only of one terrible fact—her shame—her ruined life!
She had never dreamed, until within that hour, that she was not the daughter of those whom she had always known as her father and mother.
She had known that they had gone abroad immediately after their marriage, and had spent more than a year visiting foreign countries.
She had been told that she was born in Rome, in 18—, and she now realized that the letters which she had just read had been mostly written during the same year.
Mrs. Allandale had never meant that she should learn this terrible secret, and that is why she had been so anxious during her last moments that the contents of the Japanese box should be destroyed.
Edith wondered why she had kept the letters at all—why she had not destroyed them immediately upon adopting her, and thus prevented the possibility of a revelation like this.
To be sure, no one save herself need ever know of the fact unless she chose to disclose it; nevertheless, she felt just as deeply branded by it as if all the world had known of it.
"Oh, I had begun to hope that—" she began, then abruptly ceased, a burning flush suffusing her face as her thoughts thus went out toward Royal Bryant, whose eyes had only the day before told her, as plainly as eyes could speak, that he loved her, while her heart had thrilled with secret joy over the revelation, and the knowledge that her own affection had been irrevocably given to him, even though they had known each other so short a time.
Even in the midst of her sorrow over her dead, the thought that she loved and was beloved had been like the strains of soothing music to her, and she had looked forward to her return to the young lawyer's office as to a place of refuge, where she would meet with kindness and sympathy that would comfort her immeasurably.
But these beautiful dreams had been ruthlessly shattered; she could never be anything to Royal Bryant—he could never be anything to her, after learning what she had learned that night.
Edith determined to leave New York at once. With this object in view, she disposed of most of her furniture to a broker, who gave her sixty dollars for it. She reserved articles she presented to her stanch friend, Kate O'Brien. These matters attended to, she wrote a letter to Mr. Bryant, mailed it, and a few hours later was on the