which, doubtless, accounted in a measure
for the unusual quiet.

But this very fact she knew would only serve to make any movement on
her part all the more noticeable, and while she was wondering how she
should manage her escape before the return of Mrs. Goddard, a slight
noise behind her suddenly warned her of the presence of another in the
room.

She turned quickly, and a low cry of surprise broke from her as she
saw standing, just inside the door, the very woman whom, a few moments
before she had seen disappear within the area door of the house.

She was now holding her child in her arms and regarding Edith through
her veil with a look of fire and hatred that made the girl's flesh
creep with a sense of horror.

Putting the little one down on the floor, she braced herself against
the door and remarked, with a bitter sneer, but in a rich, musical
voice, and with a foreign accent:

"Without doubt I am in the presence of Madam Correlli."

Edith flushed crimson at her words.

"I--I do not understand you," she faltered, filled with surprise and
dismay at being thus addressed by the veiled stranger.

"I wish to see Madam Correlli," the woman remarked, in an impatient
and bitter tone. "I am sure I am not mistaken addressing you thus."

"Yes, you are mistaken--there is no such person," Edith boldly
replied, determined that she would never commit herself by responding
to that hated name.

"Are you not the girl whose name was Edith Allen?" demanded her
companion, sharply.

"My name is Edith Allen--"

She checked herself suddenly, for she had unwittingly come near
uttering the rest of it. She went a step or two nearer the woman,
trying to distinguish her features, which were so shadowed by the veil
she wore that she could not tell how she looked.

"Ah! so you will admit your identity, but you will not confess to the
name by which I have addressed you. Why?" demanded the unknown
visitor, with a sneer.

"Because I do not choose," said Edith, coldly. "Who are you, and why
have you forced yourself upon me thus?"

"And you will also deny this?" cried the stranger, in tones of
repressed passion, but ignoring the girl's questions, as she pulled a
paper from her pocket and thrust under her eyes a notice of the
marriage at Wyoming.

Edith grew pale at the sight of it, when the other, quick to observe
it, laughed softly but derisively.

"Ah, no; you cannot deny that you were married to Emil Correlli, only
the nigh