from steady.

"Is the--man living now?" Mona demanded, a cold glitter in her usually
gentle eyes.

Mr. Dinsmore threw out his hand with a gesture of agony at this question.

Then suddenly pulling himself together, he hoarsely responded:

"No."

But he turned his face away from her gaze as he said it.

"When and where did he die?"

"Do not ask me. Oh, Mona, for pity's sake, ask me nothing more. I
cannot, I will not bear this inquisition any longer," the man cried,
in a despairing tone.

The young girl's face blanched suddenly at this, and she turned a wild,
startled look upon her companion, as a terrible suspicion flashed into
her mind.

Had her uncle avenged her mother's wrongs?--was his hand stained with her
father's blood, and was this the reason why he was so fearfully agitated
in speaking of these things?

It was an awful thought, and for a moment, every nerve in her body
tingled with pain. All her strength fled, and she dared not question him
further on that point, for her own sake, as well as his.

There was a dead silence for several moments, while both struggled for
the mastery of their emotions; then Mona said, in a low, awed tone:

"Just one thing more, Uncle Walter--is--his other wife living?"

"I believe so."

"Where is she?"

"I do not know."

"Did she care nothing for me?"

"No, she hated your mother, and you a hundred-fold on her account."

"That is enough--I have heard all that I wish," Mona said, coldly, as she
started to her feet and stood erect and rigid before him. "You said truly
when you told me that the man deserved hatred and contempt. I do hate and
scorn him with all the hate and strength of my nature. I am glad he is
dead. Were he living, and should he ever seek me, I would spurn him as I
would spurn a viper. But oh, Uncle Walter, you must let me lean upon you
more than ever before, for my heart is very, very sore over the wrong
that has been done my poor mother and me. How good you have been to
me--and I love you--I will always love and trust you, and I will never
ask you any more questions."

She flung her arms around his neck, buried her face in his bosom, and
burst into a passion of tears. The sorrowful story to which she had
listened, and the fearful suspicion which, at the last, had so appalled
her, had completely unnerved her.

The man clasped her to him almost convulsively, though a strong shudder
shook his frame, laid his own face caressingly against her soft