live and bear such a fate! Oh, what
a shameful mockery it was! I felt, all the time, as if I were
committing a sacrilege, and yet I never dreamed that I was being used
so treacherously--"

The housekeeper sat down beside the excited girl, whose eyes were
burning with a feverish light, and who showed symptoms of returning
hysteria.

She removed her spectacles, and taking both of those trembling hands
in hers, looked steadily into the troubled eyes.

"My child," she said, in a gentle, soothing tone, "you must not talk
about it to-night--you must not even think about it. I have told you
that it will all come out right; no man could hold you to such a
marriage--no court would hold you bound when once it is understood how
fraudulently you had been drawn into it."

"But who is going to be able to prove that it was fraudulent?"
questioned Edith with increasing anxiety. "Apparently I went to the
altar with that man of my own free will; with all the semblance of
sincerity I took those marriage vows upon me and then received the
congratulations of all those guests as if I were a real wife. Oh, it
was terrible! terrible! terrible!" and her voice arose almost to a
shriek of agony as she concluded.

"Hush! not another word! Edith look at me!" commanded Mrs. Weld with
gentle but impressive authority.

The young girl, awed to silence in spite of her grief and nervous
excitement, looked wonderingly up into those magnetic eyes which
almost seemed to betray a dual nature.

"Oh, dear Mrs. Weld, you do not seem at all like yourself," she
gasped. "What--who are you?"

"I am your friend, my dear," was the soothing response, "and I am
going to prove it, first by forbidding you to refer to this subject
again until after you have had a nice, long sleep. Trust me and obey
me, dear; I am going to stand by you as long as you need a friend, and
I promise you that you shall never be a slave to the man who has so
wronged you to-night. Now put it all out of your mind. I do not want
to give you an opiate if I can avoid it, for you would not be so well
to-morrow after taking it; but I shall have to if you keep up this
excitement."

She continued to hold the girl's trembling hands in a strong,
protecting clasp, while she still gazed steadily into her eyes,
until, as if overcome by a will stronger than her own--her physical
strength being well-nigh exhausted--the white lids gradually drooped,
the rigid form relaxed, the lines smoothed themse