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
snatched 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