d making her the
wife of my brother, whom she had absolutely refused to
marry, but who was determined to carry his point at all
hazards. Motives of affection for him, and of jealousy, on
account of my husband's apparent fondness for the girl,
alone prompted me to aid him in his bold design. I hereby
declare again that it was all a trick, from beginning to
end, and it was only by my indomitable will, and by working
upon Miss Allen's sympathies, that I was enabled to carry
out my purpose." (Then followed a detailed account of the
plot of the play and its concluding ceremony, after which
the document closed as follows): "I am impressed that I have
not long to live; and wishing, if it can be done, to right
this great wrong, and make it possible for the proper
officials to declare Miss Allen freed from her bonds, I make
this confession of a fraud that weighs too heavily upon my
conscience to be borne.

"ANNA CORRELLI GODDARD."

The above was dated the day previous to that of madam's death, and
underneath she had appended a few lines to Mr. Goddard, stating that
she knew he was in sympathy with Edith; therefore she should leave the
epistle with her lawyer, to be given to him, in the event of her
death, and she enjoined him to see that justice was done the girl whom
she had injured.

This was the missive that the lawyer had passed to Mr. Goddard at the
same time that he had read the woman's will in the presence of her
husband and Emil Correlli, and over which, as we have seen, he
afterward became so strangely agitated.

We know how he had hurriedly removed from his former elegant home to a
habitation on another street; after which, instead of going abroad, as
the papers had stated, he had gone directly to New York, upon the same
quest as Emil Correlli, but with a very different purpose in
view--that of giving to Edith the precious document that was to
declare her free from the man whom she loathed.

He could get no trace of her, however; unlike Correlli, he had no
knowledge of her acquaintance with Royal Bryant, and therefore all he
could do was to carry the letter about with him, wherever he went, in
the hope of some day meeting her upon the street, or elsewhere.

One day he was out at Central Park, when he suddenly came upon a
former friend--Mrs. Wallace--who immediately announced to him her
intenti