Emil Correlli followed Mr. Goddard and his unconscious burden, looking like anything but a happy bridegroom.

He had expected that Edith would weep and rave upon discovering the trap into which she had been lured; but he had not expected that the revelation would smite her with such terrible force, laying her like one dead at his feet, as it had done, and he was thoroughly alarmed.

When Mr. Goddard reached the girl's room he laid her upon her bed, and then sent one of the servants for the housekeeper. But Mrs. Weld could not be found, so another maid was called, and Edith was gradually restored to consciousness.

But the moment her glance fell upon Emil Correlli, who insisted upon remaining in the room, and she realized what had occurred, she relapsed into another swoon, so deathlike and prolonged that a physician, who happened to be among the guests, was summoned from the ball-room to attend her.

He excluded every one but the maids from the room, when he ordered his patient to be undressed and put into bed, and after long and unwearied efforts, she was again revived, when she became so unnerved and hysterical that the physician, becoming alarmed, was about to give her a powerful opiate, when she sank into a third fainting fit.

Meanwhile, in the ball-room below, gayety was at its height. There had been a little stir and commotion when it was learned that Edith had fainted; but the matter was passed over with a few well-bred comments of regret, and then forgotten for the time. But as soon as she could do so without being observed, madam stole from the place and went into the house to ascertain how the girl was.

She was, of course, aware of the cause of the swoon, and, as may be readily imagined, was in no comfortable frame of mind. She was met at the head of the second flight of stairs by her husband, whose face was grave and stern.

"How is she?" madam inquired.

"In a very critical condition; Dr. Arthur says she is liable to have brain fever," he tersely replied.

"Brain fever!" exclaimed his wife, in a startled tone. "Surely, she cannot be as bad as that!"

"Woman, what have you done?" the man demanded, in a hoarse whisper. "How have you dared to plot and carry out the dastardly deed that you have perpetrated this night?"

Anna Goddard's eyes began to blaze defiance.

"That is neither the tone nor the manner you should employ in addressing me, Gerald, as you very well know," she retorted, with colorless lips.

"Have done with your tragic airs, madam," he cried, laying a heavy hand upon her arm. "I have had enough of them. I ask you again, how have you dared to commit this crime?"

"Crime?" she repeated, with a start, but flashing him a glance that made him wince as she shook herself free from his grasp. "You use a harsh term, Gerald; but if you desire a reason for what has occurred to-night, I can give you two."

"Name them," her companion curtly demanded.

"First and foremost, then—to protect myself."

"To protect yourself—from what?"

"From treachery and desertion."

"Anna!"

A bitter sneer curled the beautiful woman's lips.

"You know how to do it very well, Gerald," she tauntingly returned. "That air of injured innocence is vastly becoming to you, and would be very effective, if I did not know you so well; but it has disarmed me for the last time. Pray never assume it again, for you will never blind me by it in the future."

"Explain yourself, Anna. I fail to understand you."

"Very well; I will do so in a very few words; I was a witness of your interview with the girl just after dinner to-night."

"You?" ejaculated the man, flushing hotly, and looking considerably crestfallen. "Well, what of it?" he added, defiantly, the next moment.

"What of it, indeed? Do you imagine a wife is going to stand quietly by and see her husband make love to her companion?"

"What nonsense you are talking, Anna! I went in search of one of the housemaids to button my gloves for me, met Miss Allen instead, and she was kind enough to oblige me."

"Bah! Gerald, I was too near you at the time to swallow such a very lame vindication," vulgarly sneered his wife. "You were making love to her, I tell you—you were telling her something which you had no business to reveal, and I swore then that her fate should be sealed this very night."

Gerald Goddard realized that there was no use arguing with his wife in that mood, while he also felt that his case was rather weak, and so he shifted his ground.

"But you must have plotted this thing long ago, for your play was written, and your characters chosen before we left the city," he remarked.

"Well?"

"But you said you had two reasons; what was the other?"

"Emil's love for the girl. He became infatuated with her from the moment of his coming to us, as you must have noticed."

"Yes."

"Well, he tried to win her—he even asked her to marry him, but she refused him. Think of it—that little nobody rejecting a man like Emil, with his wealth and position!"

"Well, if she did not love him, she had a right to refuse, him."

"Oh, of course," sneered madam, irritably. "But you know what he is when he once gets his heart set upon anything, and her obstinacy only made him the more determined to carry his point. He appealed to me to help him; and, as I have never refused him anything he wanted, if I could possibly give it to him—"

"But this was such a wicked—such a heartless, cowardly thing to do!" interposed Mr. Goddard, with a gesture of horror.

"I know it," madam retorted, with a defiant toss of her head; "but you may thank yourself for it, after all; for, almost at the last moment, I repented—I was on the point of giving the whole thing up and letting the play go on without any change of characters, when your faithlessness turned me into a demon, and doomed the girl."

"I believe you are a 'demon'—your jealousy has been the bane of your whole life and mine; and now you have ruined the future of as beautiful and pure a girl as ever walked the earth," said Gerald Goddard, with a threatening brow, and in a tone so deadly cold that the woman beside him shivered.

"Pshaw! don't be so tragic," she said, after a moment, and assuming an air of lightness, "the affair will end all right—when Edith comes fully to herself and realizes the situation, I am sure she will make up her mind to submit gracefully to the inevitable."

"She shall not—I will help her to break the tie that binds her to him."

"Will you?" mockingly questioned his wife. "How pray?"

"By claiming that she was tricked into the marriage."

"How will you prove that, Gerald?" was the smiling query.

The man was dumb. He knew he could not prove it.

"Did she not go willingly enough to the altar?" pursued madam. "Did she not repeat the responses freely and unhesitatingly? Was she not married by a regularly ordained minister? and was she not introduced afterward to hundreds of people as the wife of my brother, and did she not respond as such to the name of Mrs. Correlli? I hardly think you could make out a case, Gerald."

"But the fact that the Kerbys were called away by telegram, and that some one was needed to supply their places, would prove that Edith had no knowledge of the affair—at least until the last moment," said Mr. Goddard, eagerly seizing upon that point.

But madam broke into a musical little laugh as he ceased.

"Do you imagine that I would leave such a ragged end as that in my plot?" she mockingly questioned. "The Kerbys were not called away by telegram, and no one can prove that either was ever told they were. The Kerbys are still here, dancing away as heartily as any one below, and they have known, from the first, that they would not appear in the last act—they and they only, were let into the secret that the play was to end with a real marriage."

"It is the most devilish plot I ever heard of," said her companion, passionately, through his tightly-locked teeth. "Your insane jealousy and suspicion, during the years we have lived together, have shriveled whatever affection I hitherto possessed for you!"

"Gerald!"

The name came hoarsely from the woman's white lips.

It was as if some one had stabbed her, and her heart had died with the utterance of that loved name.

He left her abruptly, and descended the stairs, never once looking back, while she watched him with an expression in her eyes that had something of the fire of madness in it, as well as that of a breaking heart.

When he reached the lower hall, she dashed down to the second floor, and into her own room, locking herself in.

Fifteen minutes later she came out again, but in place of the usual glow of health upon her cheeks, she had applied rouge to conceal the ghastliness she could not otherwise overcome, while there was a look of recklessness and defiance in her dark eyes that bespoke a nature driven to the verge of despair.

Making her way back to the ball-room, she was soon mingling with the merry dancers, and with a forced gayety that deceived every one save her husband.

To all inquiries for the bride, she replied that she had recovered consciousness, but it was doubtful if she would be able to make her appearance again that night.

Then as her glance fell upon a tall, magnificently-formed woman, who was standing near, and the center of an admiring group, she inquired, in a tone of surprise:

"Why! who is that lady in garnet velvet and point lace?"

"That is a Mrs. Stewart, a very wealthy woman, who resides at the Copley Square Hotel," was the reply.

"Oh, is that Mrs. Stewart?" said madam, with eager interest.

"Yes; but are you not acquainted with her?" questioned her guest, with a look of well-bred astonishment.

"No; and no wonder you think it strange that she should be here by invitation, and I have no personal acquaintance with her," the hostess remarked, with a smile; "but such is the case, nevertheless; a card was sent to her at the request of my brother, who has met her several times, and who admires her very much. What magnificent diamonds she wears!"

"Yes; she is said to be worth a great deal of money."

"She must have come in while I was upstairs inquiring about Edith," madam observed. "I must find my brother, and be presented to her. Excuse me—I will see you later."

With a graceful obeisance, madam turned away and went in search of Emil Correlli.

But, as she went, she wondered if she could ever have seen Mrs. Stewart before.

The woman's face seemed strangely familiar to her, and yet she could not remember having met her before.

The sensation was something like those mysterious occurrences which sometimes make people feel that they are but a repetition of experiences in a previous state of existence.

The stranger was an undeniably handsome woman. She was more than handsome, for there was a sweet grace and influence about her every movement and expression that proclaimed her to be a woman of noble and lovely character.

She was a woman to be singled out from the multitude on account of the taste and elegance of her costume, as well as for her great personal beauty.

"She cannot have less than fifty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on her person," murmured Anna Goddard, with a pang of envy, as she covertly watched her strange guest while she made her way through the throng in search of her brother.

She met him near the door, he having just come in from the house, to excuse himself to his sister, after having been to Edith's door for the sixth time to inquire for her.

His face was pale, his brow gloomy, his eyes heavy with anxiety.

"Well, how is she now?" questioned his sister.

"She has fallen into her third swoon, and the doctor thinks she is in a very critical state. He says her condition must have been induced by a tremendous shock of some kind."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard, looking relieved. "Judging from that, I should say that the girl has not yet revealed the true state of affairs."

"No; Dr. Arthur did not appear to know how to account for her condition, and asked me if I knew anything that could have caused it."

"Of course, you did not?" said madam, meaningly.

"No; except the excitement, etc., of the occasion."

"Well, don't worry," Mrs. Goddard returned; "everything will come out all right in time. It is a great piece of luck that she did not wail and rave and let out the whole story before the doctor and the maids. Your Mrs. Stewart is here—you must come and greet her and introduce me," she concluded, glancing toward her guest as she spoke.

"I was coming to tell you that I am going to my room and to bed—I have no heart for any gayety to-night," said Emil Correlli, gloomily.

"Nonsense! don't be so absurdly foolish, Emil," responded his sister, impatiently.

"Indeed! I think it would be improper for me to remain when my wife is so ill," he objected, but flushing as he uttered the word.

"Well, perhaps; do as you choose. But come and introduce me to Mrs. Stewart before you go; she must feel rather awkward to be a guest here and not know her hostess."