ebted for my being?"

"My love, cannot you restrain your curiosity upon that point? Will you
not let the dead past bury its dead, without erecting a tablet to its
memory?" her companion pleaded, gently. "It can do you no possible
good--it might cause you infinite pain to know."

"Is the man living?" Edith sternly demanded.

Mrs. Stewart flushed.

"Yes," she replied, after a moment of hesitation.

"Then I must know--you must tell me, so that I may shun him as I would
shun a deadly serpent," the young girl exclaimed, with compressed lips
and flashing eyes.

Mrs. Stewart looked both pained and troubled.

"My love, I wish you would not press this point," she remarked,
nervously.

"Edith turned and gazed searchingly into her eyes.

"Do you still cherish an atom of affection for him?" she inquired.

"No! a thousand times no!" was the emphatic response, accompanied by a
gesture of abhorrence.

"Then you can have no personal motive or sensitiveness concerning the
matter."

"No, my child--my desire is simply to save you pain--to spare you a
shock, perchance."

"Do I know him already?--have I ever seen him?" cried Edith, in a
startled tone.

"Yes, dear."

"Then tell me! tell me!" panted the girl. "Oh! if I have spoken with
him, it is a wonder that my tongue was not paralyzed in the act--that
my very soul did not shrink and recoil with aversion from him!" she
exclaimed, trembling from head to foot with excitement.

Her mother saw that it would be useless to attempt to keep the truth
from her; that it would be better to tell her, or she might brood over
the matter and make herself unhappy by vainly trying to solve the
riddle in her own mind.

"Edith," she said, with gentle gravity, "the man is--Gerald Goddard!"

The girl sprang to her feet, electrified by the startling revelation,
a low cry of dismay escaping her.

"He! that man my--father!" she breathed, hoarsely, with dilating
nostrils and horrified eyes.

"It is true," was the sad response. "I would have saved you the pain
of knowing this if I could."

"Oh! and I have lived day after day in his presence! I have talked and
jested with him! I have eaten of his bread, and his roof has sheltered
me!" cried Edith, shivering with aversion. "Why, oh, why did not some
instinct warn me of the wretched truth, and enable me to repudiate him
and then fly from him as from some monster of evil? Ah, I was warned,
if I had but heeded the signs," she continued, with