"Oh!--"
It was a sharp cry of agony that burst from Isabel Stewart"s lips.
"Oh, why did she keep them?" she went on, wildly; "how could she have been so unwise? Why--why did she not destroy them?"
At these words a light so eager, so beautiful, so tender that it seemed to transfigure her, suddenly illumined Edith"s face, for they confirmed, beyond a doubt, the suspicion and hope that had been creeping into her heart.
"Tell me--are you that "Belle"?" she whispered, bending nearer to her with gleaming eyes.
"Oh, do not ask me!" cried the unhappy woman, a bitter sob escaping her.
She had never dreamed of anything so dreadful as that those fatal letters would fall into the hands of her child, to prejudice her and make her shrink from her with aversion.
She had planned, if she was ever so fortunate as to find her, and had to reveal her history to her, to smooth over all that would be likely to shock her--that she would never confess to her how despair had driven her to the verge of that one crime upon which she now looked back with unspeakable horror.
The thought that this beautiful girl knew all, and believed the worst--as she could not fail to do, she reasoned, after reading the crude facts mentioned in those letters--filled her with shame and grief: for how could she ever eradicate those first impressions, and win the love she so craved?
Thus she was wholly unprepared for what followed immediately upon her indirect acknowledgment of her ident.i.ty.
The gentle girl, her expressive face radiant with mingled joy, love, sympathy, slipped both arms around her companion"s waist, and dropping her head upon her shoulder, murmured, fondly:
"Ah, I am sure you are!--I am sure that I have found my mother, and--I am almost too happy to live."
"Child! my own darling! Is it possible that you can thus open your heart of hearts to me?" sobbed the astonished woman, as she clasped the slight form to her in a convulsive embrace.
"Oh, yes--yes; I have longed for you, with longing unspeakable, ever since I knew," Edith murmured, tremulously.
"Longed for me? Ah, I never dared to hope that Heaven could be so kind. I feared, love, that you would despise me, as a weak and willful woman, even after I should tell you all my story, with its extenuating circ.u.mstances; but now, while knowing and believing only the worst, you take me into the arms of your love, and own me--your mother!"
She broke down utterly at this point, and both, clasped in each other"s embrace, sobbed in silent sympathy for a few moments.
"Well, dearest, this will never do," Mrs. Stewart at last exclaimed, as she lifted her face and smiled tenderly upon Edith; "we must at least compose ourselves long enough to make our adieus to our hostess; then I am going to take you home with me, to have all the story of our tangled past unraveled and explained. Come, let us sit down for a few moments, until we get rid of the traces of our tears, and you shall tell me how you happened to be in Boston under the name of Edith Allen."
She drew her toward a couch as she spoke, and there Edith related how she had happened to meet the G.o.ddard"s on the train, between New York and Boston, and was engaged to act as madam"s companion, and how also the mistake regarding her name had occurred.
"And were you happy with them, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Stewart, regarding her curiously.
The fair girl flushed.
"Indeed I was not," she replied, "I think they were the strangest people I ever met."
Almost as she spoke the door of the reception-room opened, and Gerald G.o.ddard himself appeared upon the threshold.
He was pale to ghastliness, and looked years older than when Edith had seen him in the drawing-room a few minutes previous.
"Pardon me this intrusion, Miss--Edith," he began, shrinkingly, while he searched both faces before him with despairing eyes; "but I am about to leave, and I wished to give you this note before I went. If, after reading it, you should care to communicate with me, you can address me at the Murry Hill Hotel."
He laid the missive upon a table near the door, then, with a bow, withdrew, leaving the mother and daughter alone again.
"That was Mr. G.o.ddard," Edith explained to her companion, as she arose to take the letter; but without a suspicion that the two had ever met before, or that the man was her own father--the "monster" who had so wronged her beautiful mother.
Mrs. Stewart made no reply to the remark; and Edith, breaking the seal of the envelope in her hands, drew forth several closely-written pages.
"Why!" she exclaimed, in a startled tone, "this is Mrs. G.o.ddard"s handwriting!"
She hastily unfolded the sheets and ran her eye rapidly down the first page, when a low cry broke from her lips, and, throwing herself upon her knees before her mother, she buried her face in her lap, murmuring joyfully:
"Saved! saved!"
"Darling, tell me!--what is this that excites you so?" Mrs. Stewart pleaded, as she bent over her and softly kissed her flushed cheek.
Edith put the letter into her hands, saying, eagerly:
"Read it--read it!--it will tell its own story."
Her companion obeyed her, and, as she read, her face grew stern and white--her eyes glittered with a fiery light which told of an outraged spirit aroused to a point where it would have been dangerous for the woman who once had deeply wronged her, had she been living, to have crossed her path again.
"If I had known!--if I had known--" she began, when she reached the end. Then, suddenly checking herself, she added, tenderly, to Edith: "My love, it seems so wonderful--all this that has happened to you and to me! We must take time to talk it all over by ourselves. You can excuse yourself to your friend, can you not, and come with me to the Waldorf? Say that I wish to keep you for the remainder of the day and night, but will return you to her in the morning."
Edith"s face beamed with delight at this proposal.
"Yes, indeed," she said, rising to comply at once with the request. "I am sure Nellie will willingly give me up, when I whisper the truth in her ear. My dear--dear mother!" she added, tremulously, as she bent forward and kissed the beautiful face with quivering lips, "this wonderful revelation seems too joyful to be true!"
"Edith, my child," gravely said Isabel Stewart, as she held the girl a little away from her and searched her face with anxious eyes, "after learning what you did of me, from those horrible letters, is there no shrinking in your heart--is there no feeling of--of shame or of pitiful contempt for me?"
"Not an atom, dear," whispered the trustful maiden, whose keen intuitions had long since fathomed the character of the woman before her; "to me you are as pure and dear as if that man--whoever he may have been--had never cast a shadow upon your life by the shameful deception which he practiced upon you."
"My blessed little comforter! you shall be rewarded for your faith in me," returned Mrs. Stewart, her lips wreathed in fondest smiles, her eyes glowing with happiness. "But go excuse yourself to Mrs. Morrell, then we will take leave of our hostess, and go home."
Ten minutes later they were on their way to the Waldorf.
It was rather a silent drive, for both were still too deeply moved over their recent reunion to care to enter into details just then. It was happiness enough to sit side by side, hand clasped in hand, knowing that they were mother and daughter, and in tenderest sympathy with each other.
Upon arriving at her hotel Mrs. Stewart led the way directly to her delightful suite of rooms, where, the moment the door was closed, she turned and once more gathered Edith into her arms.
"I must hold you--I must feel you, else I shall not be quite sure that I am not dreaming," she exclaimed. "I find it difficult to realize my great happiness. Can it be possible that I have my own again, after so many years! that you were once the tiny baby that I held in my arms in Rome, and loved better than any other earthly object? It is wonderful!
wonderful! and strangest of all is the fact that your heart turns so fondly to me! Are you sure, dear, that you can unreservedly accept and love your mother, in spite of those letters, and what they revealed regarding my past life?"
And again she searched Edith"s face and eyes as if she would read her inmost thoughts.
She met her glance clearly, unshrinkingly.
"I am sure that you never committed a willful wrong in your life," she gravely replied. "It was a sad mistake to go away from your home and parents, as you did; but there is no intent to sin to be laid to your charge--your soul shines, like a beacon light, through these dear eyes, and I am sure it is as pure and lovely as your face is beautiful."
"May He who always judges with divine mercy bless you for your sweet charity and faith," murmured Isabel Stewart, in tremulous tones, as she pa.s.sionately kissed the lips which had just voiced such a blessed a.s.surance of trust and love.
"Now come," she went on, a moment later, while, with her own hands, she tenderly removed Edith"s hat and wrap, "we will make ourselves comfortable, then I will tell you all the sad story of my misguided youth."