For the time she forgot her own wretchedness in her sympathy for her erring and more unfortunate sister—for the woman and the mother who had been outraged beyond compare.
At length she raised her hand and laid it half-timidly, but with exceeding kindness, upon her shoulder.
"I understand you now," she said, gently, "and I am very sorry."
The words were very simple and commonplace; but the tone, the look, and the gesture that accompanied them spoke more than volumes, and completely won the heart of the passionate and despairing creature before her for all time.
They also proved too much for her self-possession, and, with a moan of anguish, throwing herself upon her knees beside her child, she clasped him convulsively in her arms and burst into a flood of weeping.
"Oh! my poor, innocent baby! to think that this curse must rest upon you all your life—it breaks my heart!" she moaned, while she passionately covered his head and face with kisses. "They tell me there is a God," she went on, hoarsely, as she again struggled to her feet, "but I do not believe it—no God of love would ever create monsters like Emil Correlli, and allow them to deceive and ruin innocent girls, blackening their pure souls and turning them to fiends incarnate! Yes, I mean it," she panted, excitedly, as she caught Edith's look of horror at her irreverent and reckless expressions.
"Listen!" she continued, eagerly. "Only three years ago I was a pure and happy girl, living with my parents in my native land—fair, beautiful, sunny Italy—"
"Italy?" breathlessly interposed Edith, as she suddenly remembered that she also had been born in that far Southern clime. Then she grew suddenly pale as she caught the eyes of the little one gazing curiously into her face, and also remembered that "the curse" which his mother had but a moment before so deplored, rested upon her as well.
Involuntarily, she took his little hand, and lifting it to her lips, imprinted a soft caress upon it, at which the child smiled, showing his pretty white teeth, and murmured some fond musical term in Italian.
"You are an angel not to hate us both," said his mother, a sudden warmth in her tones, a gleam of gratitude in her dusky eyes. "But were you ever in Italy?" she added, curiously.