But Belva shook off the remonstrating hand, and, laughing more wildly than before, looked at Mrs. Fielding. She saw that the pale bride had glided to her mother’s side, and was clinging to her with trembling hands. “Mother,” she faltered, “you will make them explain, won’t you, dear? This is horrible! She frightens me with her laughter; it has such a dreadful sound.” “Yes--what does it all mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Jones curiously. “Why, I heard that Mr. Lorraine was rich, and that we were invited to his wedding reception at a Fifth Avenue mansion,” and she glanced contemptuously around the mean apartment, and then looked, with a little feminine triumph, at Mrs. Fielding, the woman whom she cordially despised for her aristocratic airs. Sadie Allen came forward to the silent, half-dazed bridegroom, and said curtly: “Come, Mr. Lorraine, we want you to explain the meaning of this. You have pretended to be rich all this time, and if you have fooled Fair Fielding, why, I say you are no gentleman--that’s all.” He looked up at her helplessly, and, with an appealing glance in his dark eyes, muttered incoherently: “I couldn’t help it! She made me do it. I was in her power. She threatened----” “She? Who is she? Not Fair? Not Mrs. Fielding?” exclaimed Sadie, and before he could answer Belva Platt come up to them, and, dropping a mocking curtsy, interposed defiantly: “I am she! I planned it all. I made him marry Fairfax Fielding!” CHAPTER VIII. AN ORGAN GRINDER. Every eye in the room turned on the bold, defiant speaker, whose tall form seemed to grow taller and to expand with the pride she felt in her own cleverness. As she caught the low, stifled cry that came from the blanched lips of the deceived bride, her blue eyes blazed maliciously, and she continued audaciously, and as if regardless of any one’s good opinion: “I owed that girl a bitter grudge, and this is the way I have paid it. I introduced him to her, and pretended that he was rich, because I knew that she and her foolish mother were on the lookout for a rich husband. They fell into the trap, and now they are well punished for their pride and ambition. George Lorraine--although, by the way, that isn’t his real name--is as poor as a church mouse, and lazy withal. He----” “Stop!” shouted the bridegroom, springing toward her, and she quailed a little at the fire in his black eyes, as he continued sharply: “It wasn’t in the bargain that you should abuse me to the girl you made me marry, for I love her, and I’ll work for her, and her mother, too--yes, I will!--and perhaps she may forgive me yet, if you do not, like the fiend you are, try to poison her against me with your malicious tales.” “Hear him, hear him! The Italian organ grinder!” exclaimed Belva, with disdainful mockery; but he had turned from her and flung himself on his knees before his bride, whose big brown eyes looked out of her lovely, blanched face with scorn and disdain.