"Edith," commanded her aunt, without losing her composure, "let us not have a scene, if you please. You are my foster-daughter and I have a lawful right to demand obedience of you." "I will not be your foster-daughter any longer," cried the young lady, asserting herself resolutely; "I will go into service, for which I have been trained in your house. As chambermaid or kitchen girl I can give my hand to whom I choose." "You will not be allowed to execute your threat, my dear," returned the baroness calmly. "You are under very good care here, and things will take their orderly and proper course until you are called upon to kneel at the altar; and should you choose to weep while pledging your vows there, your tears would be merely regarded as a fitting accompaniment to the solemn ceremonial." "But I should not weep," cried the girl, excitedly; "I should do something very different. If you really found a man who consented to marry me to please you and against my will, I should say to him, before he led me to the altar, that I once ran away from a convent,--ran away in the night and made my way to the camp where my lover was, in whose room I passed half the night. Some of his comrades, as well as the market-woman in Singer Street, saw me there, and all the nuns in the St. Bridget Convent know about it. Sister Remigia knows that I ran away and where I was. The marks of the punishment I received the next day are still visible. And now, madam, do you wish another than the man for whom I bear those scars to see them?" Passionate scorn and maidenly indignation spoke in the girl's every look and gesture. Richard was struck dumb with admiration. The baroness fairly choked with amazement and impotent wrath. Of what she had just heard she had entertained not the slightest suspicion. She felt her self-control and will-power slipping away from her in the determined girl's presence; yet she made one last attempt to carry her point. "You wretched girl!" she cried, clasping her hands and turning her eyes heavenward; "alas, that you should have so far forgotten yourself! Do you know that you have fallen a victim to an unprincipled seducer? This man here whom you claim to be your betrothed is already married to another woman, who, of course, has rights that take precedence of yours, and who will drive you from his side with reviling and insult." "I--married already?" gasped Richard, in amazement. "Yes, you!" retorted the baroness. "Or do you choose to deny that you have a son in Pest over whom you watch with tender care, whose education you pay for, and whom you sent to the hospital when he was ill? Deny that, sir, if you can!" "So you drag a poor innocent child into our unfortunate quarrel," said Richard. "The child is innocent, but not its father," returned the accuser, pointing her finger at Richard.