uis, flushing with anger at
the threat, "and I may as well tell you the truth first as last. Mona,
you will have to give yourself to me, you will have to be my wife. Mrs.
Montague and I have both decided that it shall be so, and we have taken
pains to prevent any failure of our plan. You may appeal as much as you
wish to people here--they cannot understand you, and you will only lay
yourself liable to scandal and abuse; for, Mona, you and I came to
Havana, registered as man and wife, and our names stand upon the register
of this hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Hamblin, of New York, where already the
story of our elopement from New Orleans has become the talk of the town."

The deadly truth was out at last, and Mona, smitten with despair,
overcome by the revelation of the dastardly plot of which she was the
victim, sank helplessly upon the nearest chair, quivering with shame
and horror in every nerve, and nearly fainting from the shock which the
knowledge of her terrible danger had sent vibrating through her very
soul.

She covered her face with her hands, and tried to think, but her temples
throbbed like hammers, her brain seemed on fire, and her mind was in a
perfect chaos.

She sat thus for many minutes, until Louis Hamblin, who was hardly less
excited than herself in view of his anxiety as to what would be the
result of this critical interview, could endure the silence no longer,
and quietly but kindly remarked:

"Mona, I think it is best that you should go to your room and rest; it is
late, and you are both weary and excited. To-morrow we will talk this
matter over again, and I hope that you will then be more reasonable."

The sound of his voice aroused all her outraged womanhood, and springing
to her feet again, she turned upon him with all the courage of a lioness
at bay.

"I understand you," she cried. "I know why you and that unprincipled
woman have so plotted against me. You were afraid, in spite of what I
told you the other night, that I would demand your fortune, if I once
learned the whole truth about myself. I have learned it, and I have the
proof of it also. A message came to me, after my interview with you,
telling me everything."

"I do not believe you," Louis Hamblin faltered, but growing very pale at
this unexpected information.

"Do you not? Then let me rehearse a little for your benefit," Mona
continued, gathering courage as she went on, and in low but rapid tones
she related something of the secret