e, they are
such--this girl, I say, is the legal wife of Emil Correlli,
consequently he can lay no claim to you without making himself liable
to prosecution for the crime of bigamy."

"Are you sure?" breathed Edith, and almost faint from joy, in view of
this blessed release from a fate which to her would have been worse
than death.

"So sure, dear, that I have nothing to fear for your future, regarding
your connection with this man, and everything to hope for regarding
your happiness and mine, if you will but tell me that you love me,"
her lover returned, as he boldly captured the hand that lay alluringly
near him.

She did not withdraw it from his clasp.

It was so sweet to feel herself beloved and safe, under the protection
of this true-hearted man, that a feeling of restfulness and content
swept over her, and for the moment every other was absorbed by this.

Still, Royal Bryant realized that she had some reason for hesitating
to acknowledge her affection for him, and after a moment of silence he
said, gently:

"Forgive my impatience, dear, and tell me the 'sad story' to which you
referred a little while ago."

A heavy sigh escaped Edith.

"You will be surprised to learn," she began, "that Mr. and Mrs.
Allandale were not my own parents--that I was their adopted daughter."

"Indeed! I am surprised!" exclaimed Mr. Bryant.

"I did not discover the fact, however," the young girl pursued, "until
the night after my mother's burial."

And then she proceeded to relate all that had occurred in connection
with the box of letters which Mrs. Allandale had desired, when dying,
to be burned.

She told of her subsequent examination of them, especially of those
signed "Belle," and the story which they had revealed. How the young
girl had left her home and parents to flee to Italy with the man whom
she loved; how she had discovered, later, that her supposed marriage
with him was a sham; how, soon after the birth of her child--Edith--her
husband had deserted her for another, leaving her alone and unprotected
in that strange land.

She related how, in her despair, her mother had resolved to die, and
pleaded with her friend, Mrs. Allandale, to take her little one and
rear it as her own, thus securing to her a happy home and life without
the possibility of ever discovering the stigma attached to her birth
or the cruel fate of her mother.

Royal Bryant listened to the pathetic tale without once interrupting
the fair nar