“My poor father! if he had only told me!  I could not have loved him less, and it would have been such a comfort to have known of this relationship, and to have talked with him about my mother,” said Mona, with tears in her beautiful eyes.

“Well, dear, we will begin our life with no concealments,” said Ray, with a tender smile, “And now, when may I tell Mr. Graves that you will come to me?”

“When you will, Ray,” Mona answered, flushing, but with a look of love and trust that made his heart leap with gladness.

“Then one month from to-day, dear,” he said, as he bent his lips to hers.

And so, when the roses began to bloom and all the world was in its brightest dress, there was a quiet wedding one morning in Mr. Graves’ spacious drawing-room and Mona Dinsmore gave herself to the man she loved.

There were only a few tried and true friends present to witness the ceremony, but everybody was happy, and all agreed that the bride was very lovely in her simple but elegant traveling dress.

“I cannot have a large wedding or any parade with gay people about me, for my heart is still too sore over the loss of my dear father,” Mona had said, with quivering lips, when they had asked her wishes regarding the wedding, and so everything had been done very simply.

It is doubtful if so young a bride was ever made the recipient of so many diamonds as fell to Mona’s lot that day.

Mr. Palmer, true to his promise, had all the recovered stones reset for her, and made her a handsome gift besides.  Mr. and Miss Cutler presented to her a pair of beautiful stars for the hair, and Ray put a blazing solitaire above her wedding-ring, for a guard.

After a sumptuous wedding-breakfast, the happy couple started for a trip to the Golden Gate city, while during their absence, Mr. Palmer, senior, had his residence partially remodeled and refurnished for the fair daughter to whom already his heart had gone out in tender affection.

A notice of the marriage appeared in the papers, together with a statement that “the handsome fortune left by the late Walter Dinsmore had been restored to the young lady formerly known as Miss Mona Montague, now Mrs. Raymond Palmer, who had been fraudulently deprived of it, through the craftiness of a woman calling herself Mrs. Dinsmore.”

Mona did not wish anything of her father’s sad story to be made public, and so, it was arranged that this was all that should be given to the reporters, to show that she was Mr. Dinsmore’s heiress, and would resume her former position in the world upon her return from her bridal trip.