Mona uttered a sigh of relief over the knowledge that the meeting, which she so much dreaded, was to be postponed a little, and after dinner she returned to her room, and sat down quite composedly to read the morning paper, which she had purchased on her way to Mrs. Montague’s.

While thus engaged, her eye fell upon the following paragraph: 

“No clew has as yet been obtained to the mysterious Palmer affair, although both the police and detectives are doing their utmost to trace the clever thief.  It is most earnestly hoped that they will succeed in their efforts, as such successful knavery is an incentive to even greater crimes.”

“What can it mean?” Mona said to herself; “and what a blind paragraph!  Of course, it refers to something that has been previously published, and which might explain it.  Can it be that Mr. Palmer’s jewelry store has been robbed?”

This, of course, led her thoughts to Ray Palmer, and she fell into troubled musings regarding his apparent neglect of her, and in the midst of this there came a rap upon her door.

She arose to open it, and found Mary standing outside.

“Please, Miss Richards, will you come down to Mrs. Montague’s room?” she asked.  “She has ripped the lace flounce from her reception dress while putting it on, and wants you to repair it for her.”

Mona was somewhat excited by this summons; but, unlocking her trunk, she found her thimble, needles, and scissors, and followed Mary down stairs to the second floor and into a large room over the drawing-room.

It was a beautiful room, most luxuriously and tastefully fitted up as a lady’s boudoir, and was all ablaze with light from a dozen gas jets.

In the center of the floor there stood a magnificently beautiful woman.

She was a blonde of the purest type, and Mona thought that Mary had made a true statement when she had said that, though she was upward of forty, she did not look a day over thirty, for she certainly was a very youthful person in appearance.

Her skin was almost as fair as marble, with a flush on her round, velvet-like cheeks that came and went as in the face of a young girl.  Her features were of Grecian type, her hair was a pale gold and arranged in a way to give her a regal air; her eyes were a beautiful blue, her lips a vivid scarlet, while her form was tall and slender, with perfect ease and grace in every movement.

“How lovely she is!” thought Mona.  “It does not seem possible that she could have even an unkind thought in her heart.  I can hardly believe that she ever knew anything of my poor mother’s wrongs.”

Mrs. Montague was exquisitely dressed in a heavy silk of a delicate peach ground, brocaded richly with flowers of a deeper shade.  This was draped over a plain peach-colored satin petticoat, and trimmed with a deep flounce of finest point lace.  The corsage was cut low, thus revealing her beautiful neck, around which there was clasped a necklace of blazing diamonds.