"Thank you," said Edith, flushing with hope, but involuntarily shrinking from him, for she could not forget how he had degraded himself before her on that last horrible night at Wyoming.
"I suppose you have heard of my—of Mrs. Goddard's death?" he remarked, after a moment of silence.
"Mrs. Goddard—dead?" exclaimed Edith, shocked beyond expression.
"Yes, she died very suddenly, the second morning after you left Boston."
Edith was about to respond with some expression of regret and sympathy, when she saw him start violently, and a look of agony, that bordered on despair, leap into his eyes.
Involuntarily she turned to see what had caused it, and was both surprised and delighted to behold Mrs. Stewart—whom she supposed to be in Boston—just entering the room, and looking especially lovely in a rich black velvet costume, with a hat to match, but brightened by two or three exquisite pink roses.
At that instant a lady, to whom she had recently been introduced, laid her hand upon Edith's arm, remarking in quick, incisive tones:
"Miss Allandale, your friend, Mrs. Morrell, is beckoning you to come to her."
Again Gerald Goddard started, and so violently that he nearly knocked his picture from the easel.
He shot one quick, horrified glance at the girl.