ichmond Montague,
and Mona did not know that I had any other; but I took care that the
marriage certificate was made out with my full name, so that the ceremony
should be perfectly legal.

"We were very happy, for I idolized my young wife, and our life for six
months was one of earth's sweetest poems. We traveled a great deal during
the summer, and then settled in Paris for the winter. We had rooms in a
pleasant house in a first-class locality; our meals were served in our
own dining-room, and everything seemed almost as homelike as if we had
been in America.

"One day I took a sudden freak that I wanted to go hunting. Mona begged
me not to go; she was afraid of fire-arms, and feared some accident. But
I laughed at her fears, told her that I was an expert with a gun, and
went away in spite of her pleadings, little thinking I should never see
my darling again. I did meet with an accident--I fell and sprained my
ankle very badly, and lay for several hours in a dense forest unable
to move.

"Finally some peasants found me, and took me to their cottage, but it
was too late to send news of my injury to Paris that night. But the next
morning early I sent the man of the house--who was going through the
city on his way to visit some friends for a week, with a letter to Mona,
telling her to take a carriage and come to me. She did not come, and I
heard nothing from her. I could not send to her again, for there was no
one in the cottage to go, and no neighbor within a mile. I was terribly
anxious, and imagined a hundred things, and at the end of a week, unable
to endure the suspense any longer, I insisted upon being taken back to
Paris in spite of the serious condition of my foot and ankle.

"But, oh, my child, the tidings that met me there were such as to drive
the strongest mind distracted. The landlord told me that my wife had fled
with the butler of the house. At first I laughed in his face at anything
so absurd, but when he flew into a towering passion and accused me of
having brought disgrace upon his house by living there unlawfully with
a woman who was not my wife, I began to think there must be some truth in
his statements. In vain I denied the charge; he would not listen to me,
and drove me also from his dwelling.

"I was too lame and helpless to attempt to follow Mona, but I set a
detective at work to find my wife, for I still had faith in her, and
thought she might be the victim of the landlord's suspicions. The