It was so sweet to feel herself beloved and safe, under the protection of this true-hearted man, that a feeling of restfulness and content swept over her, and for the moment every other was absorbed by this.
Still, Royal Bryant realized that she had some reason for hesitating to acknowledge her affection for him, and after a moment of silence he said, gently:
"Forgive my impatience, dear, and tell me the 'sad story' to which you referred a little while ago."
A heavy sigh escaped Edith.
"You will be surprised to learn," she began, "that Mr. and Mrs. Allandale were not my own parents—that I was their adopted daughter."
"Indeed! I am surprised!" exclaimed Mr. Bryant.
"I did not discover the fact, however," the young girl pursued, "until the night after my mother's burial."
And then she proceeded to relate all that had occurred in connection with the box of letters which Mrs. Allandale had desired, when dying, to be burned.
She told of her subsequent examination of them, especially of those signed "Belle," and the story which they had revealed. How the young girl had left her home and parents to flee to Italy with the man whom she loved; how she had discovered, later, that her supposed marriage with him was a sham; how, soon after the birth of her child—Edith—her husband had deserted her for another, leaving her alone and unprotected in that strange land.
She related how, in her despair, her mother had resolved to die, and pleaded with her friend, Mrs. Allandale, to take her little one and rear it as her own, thus securing to her a happy home and life without the possibility of ever discovering the stigma attached to her birth or the cruel fate of her mother.