k, in-drawn breath, as she picked these
up, and read the superscription on the uppermost envelope, "'Miss Mona
Forester!' Can it be that these things belonged to my mother? And this
picture! Oh, yes, it must be the very one that Louis Hamblin told me
about--a picture of my father painted on ivory and set in a costly frame
embellished with rubies!"

She bent over the portrait, gazing long and earnestly upon it, studying
every feature of the handsome face, as if to impress them indelibly upon
her mind.

"So this represents my father as he looked when he married my mother,"
she said, with a sigh. "He was very handsome, but, oh, what a sad, sad
story it all was!"

She laid it down with an expression of keen pain on her young face and
began to look over the costly jewels, handling them with a tender and
reverent touch, while she saw that every one was marked with the name
of "Mona" on the setting.

"These also are mine, and I shall certainly claim them. How strange that
I should have found them thus!" she said, as she laid them carefully back
in the box. Then she arose and righting the table, replaced the various
things in the compartment.

In so doing she stepped upon a small box, which, until then, she had not
seen.

The cover was held in place by a narrow rubber band.

She removed it, lifted the lid, and instantly a startled cry burst from
her lips.

"Oh, what can it mean? what can it mean?" she exclaimed, losing all her
color, and trembling with excitement.

At that moment the hall-bell rang again, and Mona turned once more to the
window, now fully expecting to find that Ray had come.

No, another carriage stood before the door, but she could not see who had
rung the bell.

She wondered why Ray did not come; it was more than an hour since he went
away, and she began to fear that her captor was planning some fresh wrong
to her, and he might be detained until it would be too late to help her.

She was growing both anxious and nervous, and thought she would just slip
into Mrs. Montague's bedroom and see if she could not get out in that
way.

Suiting the action to the resolve, she hastened into the chamber, and
tried the door.

No, that was locked on the outside, and she knew that the woman must have
some evil purpose in thus making a prisoner of her.

She turned again to retrace her steps, that she might keep watch for Ray
at the window, when her eyes encountered an object lying upon the bed
which drove