her voice
that tears involuntarily started to her companion's eyes, while at
the same time both words and tone thrilled him with sweetest hope.

"No tie binds you to him, dear," he whispered, tenderly. "Do you think
I would have opened my heart to you thus if I had really believed you
to be the wife of another?"

"Oh, do you mean that the marriage was not legal? Oh, if I could
believe that!" Edith exclaimed, with a note of such eager hope in her
tones that it almost amounted to the confession her lover had
solicited from her.

But he yearned to hear it in so many words from her lips.

"Tell me, Edith, if I can prove it to you, will there be hope for me?"
he whispered.

Ought she to answer him as her heart dictated? Dare she confess her
love with that stigma of her mother's early mistake resting upon her?
she asked herself, in anguish of spirit.

She sat silent and miserable, undecided what to do.

If she acknowledged her love for him, without telling him, and he
should afterward discover the story of her birth, might he not feel
that she had taken an unfair advantage of him.

And yet, how could she ever bring herself to disclose the shameful
secret of that sad, sad tragedy which had occurred twenty years
previous in Rome?

"I--dare not tell you," she murmured at last.

The young man started, then bent eagerly toward her.

"You 'dare' not tell me!" he cried, joyfully. "Darling, I am answered
already! But why do you hesitate to open your heart to me?"

A sudden resolve took possession of her; she would tell him the whole
truth, let come what might.

"I will not," she said. "I have a sad story to tell you; but first,
explain to me what you meant when you said that no tie binds me to
that man?"

"I meant that that marriage was simply a farce, in spite of the
sacrilegious attempt of your enemies to legalize it," said the young
lawyer, gravely.

"Can that be possible?" sighed Edith, her voice tremulous with joy.

"I will prove it to you. You have told me that this man Correlli lived
with that Italian woman here in New York for two years or more."

"Yes."

"Do you know whether he allowed her to be known by his name?"

"No; but she told me that he allowed her to appear as his wife in the
house where they lived."

"Well, then, if that can be proven--and I have not much doubt about
the matter--the girl, by the laws of New York, which decree that if a
couple live together in this State as husband and wif