“Editha! Mr. Tressalia, you never told me what your friend’s name is,” and he thought her lips quivered slightly, as if at the remembrance of some sad incident of the past.
“No; I usually call her Miss Dalton when speaking of her to others. It is the dearest name in the world to me,” he added, with a slight huskiness in his voice, “though I never utter it without pain.”
“Et tu,” madam said, softly, noting the pain in his face, and knew all about it at once. “I thought you said——” she began again, and then suddenly stopped, as if she were trespassing upon forbidden ground.
“I know to what you refer,” he replied. “I thought when you asked me if I was ‘particularly interested’ in her that you meant to infer an engagement between us, but—I may as well confess it—I have loved her hopelessly for two years.”
Madam sighed heavily.
“Why is it that the world always goes wrong for some people?” he asked, passionately, and longing for sympathy now that he had begun to unburden his heart, and realizing, also that now Editha was gone, Newport was a blank to him, and fearing that his boasted “friendship” had not been so disinterested after all.
“Ah, why, unless to fit us for something better than earth’s fleeting pleasures? There are some people in the world who would never own allegiance to the Great King, if they were not driven to Him by sorrow. It were better to suffer a few years here than to miss the bright Forever,” madam, said, musingly, and as if talking with herself rather than to him. “But,” she added, shaking off her dreaminess, “tell me more of this beautiful girl and your unfortunate regard for her—I am an old and privileged friend, you know, and the name ‘Editha’ has a charm for me which will only cease when I cease to live.”
Paul Tressalia, glad to have so sweet a confidante, related all the story of his love for the fair girl, his disappointment on learning of her affection for Earle Wayne, his hasty summons home to take possession of his supposed inheritance, which lost half its charm when he knew that Editha could not become its mistress and his wife.
He told her how he had been obliged to resign Wycliffe to Earle, who also hoped to make Miss Dalton mistress there, and who had returned so full of joy and hope to claim her as his own.
Then came the story of her strange abduction, her release from her captor’s power by her lover, and then, when they believed their trials were all at an end, the dreadful blow came which had nearly broken both their hearts, and had seemed likely to wear Editha into her grave.