Her visitor flushed crimson, and her great black eyes flashed with sudden anger.
"My curse be upon him for all the evil he has done!" she cried, passionately. "Oh! how gladly would I break the bond that binds you to him, but—I have not the power; I have no claim upon him."
Edith regarded her with astonishment.
"No claim upon him?" she repeated, with another glance at the little one who was gazing from one to another with wondering eyes.
The mother's glance followed hers, and an expression of despair swept over her face.
"Oh, Holy Virgin, pity me!" she moaned, a blush of shame mantling her cheeks.
Then lifting her heavy eyes once more to Edith, she continued, falteringly:
"The boy is his and—mine; but—I have no legal claim upon him—I am no wife."
For a moment after this humiliating confession there was an unbroken silence in that elegant room.
Then a hot wave of sympathetic color flashed up to Edith's brow, while a look of tender, almost divine, compassion gleamed in her lovely eyes.