“You loved her,” she cried, fiercely, as she gazed with all her soul in her eyes upon that attractive face, while her whole frame shook with emotion.  “Nothing was too costly or elegant for your petted darling; her slightest wish was your law, while for me you had scarcely a word or a look of affection; you were like ice upon which not even the lava-tide of my idolatry could make the slightest impression.  Is it any wonder that I hated her for having absorbed all that I craved?  Is it strange that I exulted when they drove her from her apartments in Paris, believing her to be a thing too vile to be tolerated by respectable people.  Well, she had his love, but I had him—­I vowed that I would win, and—­I did.”

But, evidently, the memory of her triumph was not a very comforting one, for she suddenly dropped her face upon the hands that still clasped the picture, and burst into a torrent of tears, while deep sobs shook her frame, and she seemed utterly overwhelmed by the tempest of her grief.

Surely in this woman’s nature there were depths which no one, who had seen her the center of attraction in the thronged and brilliant drawing-rooms in high-life, would have believed possible to her.

Suddenly, in the midst of this unusual outburst, there came a knock upon the door.

The sound seemed to give her a terrible start in her nervous state.

She half sprang from her chair, a look of guilt and fear sweeping over her flushed and tear-stained face, the table before her gave a sudden lurch, and before she could put out her hand to save it, it went over and fell to the floor with a crash, spilling its contents, and snapping the lid to the secret compartment short off at its hinges.

“What is it?—­who is there?” Mrs. Montague demanded, as she went toward the door, while she tried to control her trembling voice to speak naturally.

“What has happened?—­I thought I heard a fall,” came the response in the anxious tones of Mona’s voice.

“Nothing very serious has happened,” returned Mrs. Montague, frowning, for the girl, who so closely resembled the rival she hated, coming to her just at that moment, irritated her exceedingly.  “I simply upset something just as you knocked.  What do you want?”

“I only came to ask if I should finish your tea-gown in the morning, or do the mending, as usual;” Mona replied.

“Finish the tea-gown.  I shall need it for the afternoon.”

“Very well; I am sorry if I disturbed you, Mrs. Montague.  Good-night,” and Mona turned away from the door wondering what could have caused such a clatter within the woman’s room.

Mrs. Montague went back to the bay-window, righted the table, rearranged its contents, and fitted the broken lid over them with hands that still trembled with her recent excitement.

“What a pity that the lid is broken,” she muttered, impatiently, “for now it will do no good to lock it.  I cannot help it, however, and perhaps no one will suspect that there is a secret compartment beneath the slab.”