, drawing nearer and speaking
rapidly. "I was Mrs. Goddard'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
rehearsed to perfection. At the last moment, on the evening of its
presentation before her friends, she removed the two principal
characters--telling me that they had been called home by a
telegram--and substituted 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 be