Instantly Edith's lovely face was suffused with blushes, and Mrs. Stewart, thinking it would be wise to leave the lovers alone during the forthcoming explanations, excused herself and quietly slipped into an adjoining room.
Edith immediately went to the young man's side and gave her letter to him.
"Roy, this is even more wonderful than what I have already told you," she gravely remarked. "Read it; it will explain itself better than any words of mine can do."
He drew the contents from the envelope, and began at once to read the following confession:
"For the sake of performing one right act in my life, I wish to make the following statement, namely: I hereby declare that the marriage of my brother, Emil Correlli, to Miss Edith Allen, who, for several weeks, has acted as my companion, was not a legal ceremony, inasmuch as it was accomplished solely by fraud and treachery. Miss Allen was tricked into it by being overpersuaded to personate a supposed character in a play, entitled 'The Masked Bridal.' The play was written and acted before a large audience for the sole purpose of deceiving Miss Allen and making her the wife of my brother, whom she had absolutely refused to marry, but who was determined to carry his point at all hazards. Motives of affection for him, and of jealousy, on account of my husband's apparent fondness for the girl, alone prompted me to aid him in his bold design. I hereby declare again that it was all a trick, from beginning to end, and it was only by my indomitable will, and by working upon Miss Allen's sympathies, that I was enabled to carry out my purpose." (Then followed a detailed account of the plot of the play and its concluding ceremony, after which the document closed as follows): "I am impressed that I have not long to live; and wishing, if it can be done, to right this great wrong, and make it possible for the proper officials to declare Miss Allen freed from her bonds, I make this confession of a fraud that weighs too heavily upon my conscience to be borne.
"Anna Correlli Goddard."
The above was dated the day previous to that of madam's death, and underneath she had appended a few lines to Mr. Goddard, stating that she knew he was in sympathy with Edith; therefore she should leave the epistle with her lawyer, to be given to him, in the event of her death, and she enjoined him to see that justice was done the girl whom she had injured.
This was the missive that the lawyer had passed to Mr. Goddard at the same time that he had read the woman's will in the presence of her husband and Emil Correlli, and over which, as we have seen, he afterward became so strangely agitated.
We know how he had hurriedly removed from his former elegant home to a habitation on another street; after which, instead of going abroad, as the papers had stated, he had gone directly to New York, upon the same quest as Emil Correlli, but with a very different purpose in view—that of giving to Edith the precious document that was to declare her free from the man whom she loathed.
He could get no trace of her, however; unlike Correlli, he had no knowledge of her acquaintance with Royal Bryant, and therefore all he could do was to carry the letter about with him, wherever he went, in the hope of some day meeting her upon the street, or elsewhere.