The Masked Bridal Part 55

One day Mrs. Morrell and Edith went to attend a charity exhibition that was under the supervision of a friend of the former, at her own house.

Upon their arrival they were ushered into the drawing-room, which was beautifully decorated and hung with many exquisite paintings, while some rare gems were resting conspicuously upon easels.

In one corner, and artistically draped with a beautiful scarf, Edith was startled, almost at the moment of her entrance, to see a painting that was very familiar.

It was that representing a portion of an old Roman wall, with the lovers resting in its shadow, which had attracted the attention of Mrs. Stewart on the last night of the "winter frolic," at Wyoming.

With an expression of astonishment she went forward to examine it more closely and to a.s.sure herself that it was the original, and not a copy.

Yes, those two tiny letters, G. G., in one corner, told their own story, and proved her surmise to be correct.

"How strange that it should be here!" she breathed.

She had hardly uttered the words when some one arose from behind the easel, and--she stood face to face with Gerald G.o.ddard himself.

The girl stood white and almost paralyzed before him, and the man appeared scarcely less astonished on beholding her.

"Miss Allen!" he faltered. "I never dreamed of meeting you here!"

"Oh, pray do not tell Monsieur Correlli that you have seen me," she gasped, fear for the moment superseding every other thought.

"Do not be troubled--he shall learn nothing from me," said the man, rea.s.suringly. "Correlli and I are not very good friends just now, simply because I told him that I should do all in my power to help you prove that he had no just claim upon you."

"Thank you," said Edith, flushing with hope, but involuntarily shrinking from him, for she could not forget how he had degraded himself before her on that last horrible night at Wyoming.

"I suppose you have heard of my--of Mrs. G.o.ddard's death?" he remarked, after a moment of silence.

"Mrs. G.o.ddard--dead?" exclaimed Edith, shocked beyond expression.

"Yes, she died very suddenly, the second morning after you left Boston."

Edith was about to respond with some expression of regret and sympathy, when she saw him start violently, and a look of agony, that bordered on despair, leap into his eyes.

Involuntarily she turned to see what had caused it, and was both surprised and delighted to behold Mrs. Stewart--whom she supposed to be in Boston--just entering the room, and looking especially lovely in a rich black velvet costume, with a hat to match, but brightened by two or three exquisite pink roses.

At that instant a lady, to whom she had recently been introduced, laid her hand upon Edith's arm, remarking in quick, incisive tones:

"Miss Allandale, your friend, Mrs. Morrell, is beckoning you to come to her."

Again Gerald G.o.ddard started, and so violently that he nearly knocked his picture from the easel.

He shot one quick, horrified glance at the girl.

"Miss Allandale!" he repeated, in a dazed tone, as all that the name implied forced itself upon his mind.

Another in the room had also caught the name, and turned to see who had been thus addressed.

As her glance fell upon Edith her beautiful face grew radiant.

"Oh, if it should be--" she breathed.

The next moment she had crossed the room to the girl's side.

"What did Mrs. Baldwin call you, dear?" she breathlessly inquired, regardless of etiquette, for she had not yet greeted her hostess. "Was it Miss Allandale?"

"Yes, that is my name," said Edith, flushing, but frankly meeting her look of eager inquiry.

"But you told me--" Mrs. Stewart whispered.

"Yes," interposed the young girl, "while I was in Boston I was known simply as Edith Allen--why, I will explain to you at some other time; but my real name is Edith Allandale."

The woman seemed turned to stone for a moment by this unexpected revelation, so statue-like did she become, as she also realized all that this confession embodied.

Then, as if compelled by some magnetic influence, her eyes were drawn toward the no less statue-like man standing by that never-to-be forgotten picture on the easel.

Their gaze met, and each read in that one brief look the conviction that made one heart bound with joy, the other to sink with despair--each knew that the beautiful girl, standing so wonderingly beside that stately woman, was the child that had been born to them in the pretty Italian villa hard by the old Roman wall which Gerald G.o.ddard had so faithfully reproduced upon canvas.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

"THAT MAN MY FATHER!"

Isabel Stewart was the first to recover herself, when, gently linking her arm within Edith's, she whispered, softly:

"Come with me, dear; I would like to see you alone for a few minutes."

She led her unresistingly from the room, across the hall, to a small reception-room, when, closing the door to keep out intruders, she turned and laid both her trembling hands upon the girl's shoulders.

"Tell me," she said, looking wistfully into her wondering eyes, "are you the daughter of Albert and Edith Allandale?"

"Yes."

It was all the answer that Edith, in her excitement, could make.

The beautiful woman caught her breath graspingly, and every particle of color faded from her face.

"Tell me, also," she went on, hurriedly, "did you ever hear your--your mother speak of a friend by the name of Belle Haven?"

Edith's heart leaped into her throat at this question, and she, too, began to tremble, as a suspicion of the truth flashed through her mind.

"No," she said, with quivering lips, "I never heard her mention such a person; but--"

"Yes--'but'--" eagerly repeated her companion.

"But," the fair girl continued, gravely, while she searched with a look of pain the eyes looking so eagerly into hers, "the evening after mamma was buried, I found some letters which had been written to her from Rome, and which were all signed 'Belle.'"