“You did not dare to try to sell too many at one time, and so you reserved the cross for future use,” Mr. Palmer supplemented.  “Perhaps you even intended to wear it under my very eyes, among your wedding finery.  I verily believe you are audacious enough to do so; but, madame, it will be safe to say that there will be no wedding now, at least between you and me.”

The man turned abruptly, as he ceased speaking, and left the room, looking fully a dozen years older than when, an hour previous, he had come there, with hope in his heart, to plan with his bride-elect how they could make their future home most attractive for her reception.

Ray felt a profound pity for his father, in this mortifying trial and disappointment, and he longed to follow him and express his sympathy; but his judgment told him that it would be better to leave him alone for a time; that his wounded pride could ill-brook any reference to his blighted hopes just then.

It may as well be related just here how Detective Rider happened to appear so opportunely, and how Mona found the robes in which Mrs. Montague had so successfully masqueraded to carry out her various swindling operations.

It will be remembered that Mona, after she had gathered up the keepsakes belonging to her mother and returned them to the table, had found another box upon the floor of Mrs. Montague’s boudoir.

When she had removed the rubber band that held the cover in its place, her astonished eyes fell upon a pair of exquisite diamond crescents for the ears, and a cross, which, from the description which Ray had given her, she knew must have been among the articles stolen from Mr. Palmer.

Instantly it flashed across her what this discovery meant.

She felt very sure that Mrs. Montague must have been concerned in the swindling of Mr. Cutler, more than three years previous, and also of Mrs. Vanderbeck in Boston, besides in the more recent so-called Palmer robbery.

Still, there were circumstances connected with these operations that puzzled her.

Mrs. Bently, the crafty widow of Chicago, had been described to her as a stout woman with red hair.  Mrs. Vanderbeck had also been somewhat portly, likewise Mrs. Walton, whom she had seen in St. Louis, and these latter were somewhat advanced in years also.

Mrs. Montague, on the contrary, was slight and sylph-like in figure; a blonde of the purest type, with light golden hair, a lovely complexion, with hardly the sign of a wrinkle on her handsome face.

But she did not speculate long upon these matters, for, having made this discovery, she was more anxious than before to be released from her place of confinement.  So she had gone into the adjoining room, and tried the door leading into the hall.

That, too, as we know, she had found locked, and then, as she turned to retrace her steps, she was stricken spellbound by something which she saw upon the bed.