ound me I was going to beg a drink of water
for my child. There was a door there, but it was locked; but
desperation makes one keen, and I was not long in finding a key
hanging up on a nail beneath a window-sill. The next instant the door
was unlocked, and I on my way upstairs--"

"And the key! oh! what did you do with the key?" breathlessly
interposed Edith, grasping at this unexpected chance to escape.

"I have it here, lady," said her companion, as she produced it. "I
thought it might be convenient for me to go out the same way, so took
possession of it."

"Ah, then the door to the back stairway is still unlocked?" breathed
Edith, with trembling lips.

"Yes; I did not stop to lock it after me; I hurried straight up here,
but--expecting to have a very different interview from what I have
had," responded the woman, with a heavy sigh. "Now, lady, you have my
story," she continued, after a moment of silence, "you can see that I
have been deeply wronged, and though from a moral standpoint, I have
every claim upon Emil Correlli, yet legally, I have none whatever;
and, unless you can prove some flaw in that ceremony of night before
last--prove that he fraudulently tricked you into a marriage with him,
you are irrevocably bound to him."

Edith shivered with pain and abhorrence at these last words, but she
did not respond to them in any way.

"I came here with hatred in my heart toward you," the other went on,
"but I shall go away blessing you for your kindness to me; for,
instead of shrinking from me, as one defiled and too depraved to be
tolerated, you have held out the hand of sympathy to me and listened
patiently and pityingly to the story of my wrongs."

As she concluded, she dropped her face upon the head of her child with
a weary, disheartened air that touched Edith deeply.

"Will you tell me your name?" she questioned, gently, after a moment
or two of silence. "Pardon me," she added, flushing, as her companion
looked up sharply, "I am not curious, but I do not know how to address
you."

"Giulia Fiorini. Holy Mother forgive me the shame I have brought upon
it!" she returned, with a sob. "I have called him"--laying her
trembling hand upon the soft, silky curls of her child--"Ino Emil."

"Thank you," said Edith, "and for your confidence in me as well. You
have been greatly wronged; and if there is any justice or humanity in
law, this tie, which so fetters me, shall be annulled; then,
perchance, Monsieur Corr