us excitement.

The next moment she was absorbed in their contents, and as she read a
strange change came over her.

At first there was a quick start, accompanied by a low exclamation of
surprise, then a look of wonder shot into her great brown eyes. Suddenly,
as she hungrily devoured the pages, her color fled, even her lips became
white, and an expression of keen pain settled about her mouth, but she
read on and on with breathless interest, turning page after page, until
she came to the last one, where she found her uncle's name signed in
full.

"Now I know!" burst from her trembling lips, as the sheets fell from her
nerveless hands and her voice sounded hollow and unnatural. "How very,
very strange! Oh! Uncle Walter, why didn't you tell me? why didn't
you--tell me?"

Her lips only formed those last words as her head fell back against her
chair, all the light fading out of her eyes, and then she slipped away
into unconsciousness. When she came to herself again she was cold, and
stiff, and deathly sick.

At first she could not seem to remember what had happened, for her mind
was weak and confused. Then gradually all that had occurred came back to
her.

She shivered and tried feebly to rub something of natural warmth into her
chilled hands, then suddenly losing all self-control, she bowed her face
upon them, and burst into a passion of tears.

"Oh, if I had only known before," she murmured over and over again, with
unspeakable regret.

But she was worn out, and this excitement could not last.

She made an effort to regain her composure, gathered up the scattered
sheets of her uncle's letter, restoring them to the envelope, and then
took up the other package which was bound with a scarlet ribbon.

There were half a dozen or more letters and all superscribed in a bold,
handsome hand.

"They are my father's letters to my mother," Mona murmured, "but I have
no strength to read them to-night."

She put them back, with the other things, into the secret drawer in the
mirror, which she restored to its box, and then carefully packed it away
in her trunk, with all her clothing except what she wished to put on in
the morning.

"I shall go back to New York to-morrow," she said, with firmly compressed
lips, as the last thing was laid in its place. "I cannot remain another
day in the service of such a woman; and, since I have now learned
everything, there is no need; I must go back to Ray and--happiness."

A tender