Mrs. Montague regarded him somewhat skeptically, as he made this eager avowal, but it was almost immediately followed by a look of anxiety.

“I hope you will—­you certainly owe me that much after all that I have done for you,” she returned.  “Mind you,” she added, “I never would have yielded this point if I had not been driven to it.”

“Driven to it!  How?” inquired her nephew, regarding her searchingly.

“Driven to it, because I have found out that she is Mona Montague, and I’m afraid that she has an eye to her father’s property.  I believe she is very keen—­doubtless she knows that she has a legal claim upon what he left, and means to assert it, or she never would have so cunningly wormed herself into my family.  Of course it will be difficult for her to prove her position, since I have that certificate of marriage; still she may have some other proof that I know nothing about which she is secretly working.  Of course I’d rather you would marry her,” Mrs. Montague gloomily observed, “and thus make our interests mutual, than run any risk of losing the whole of my money.  Still, I did want you to marry Kitty McKenzie:  I wanted you to fortify yourself with additional wealth.”

“I have suspected that the girl was Mona all along,” Louis quietly remarked.

“Oh, have you?” sharply retorted his aunt, as she studied his face with suspicious eyes.  “Perhaps you have been plotting to marry her for the sole purpose of getting this fortune wholly under your control.”

“Pshaw!  Aunt Margie, how foolish you are!  Haven’t I always worked for your interests?  More than that, haven’t you always assured me that the fortune would be mine eventually?  Why, then, should I plot for it?” the young man replied, in soothing tones, but coloring beneath her glance.  “I tell you,” he went on, a note of passion in his voice, “I love the girl; I would even be willing to marry her without a dollar in prospect, and then go to work to support her.  Now come, do not let us quarrel over imaginary troubles, but unite our forces for our mutual benefit.  It will be far safer for you if she becomes my wife, for then you will have nothing to fear, and I shall have won the desire of my heart.”

“Well, it will have to be, I suppose,” said Mrs. Montague, moodily.  “I wonder how I was ever so deceived though, when she looks so like Mona Forester.  I can understand now why Ray Palmer was so attentive to her at Hazeldean.  Strange it never occurred to me, when I saw him waiting upon her, that she was Mona Montague, and they must have had a quiet laugh by themselves over having so thoroughly hoodwinked us.”

“They didn’t hoodwink me,” Mr. Hamblin affirmed, with a sly smile; “I knew all the time who she was.”

“I don’t see how you knew it,” Mrs. Montague retorted, impatiently.

“I will tell you.  I was in Macy’s one day when the girl ran across some acquaintances.  She bowed and smiled to them, as I suppose she had always been in the habit of doing; but the petted darlings of le bon ton drew themselves up haughtily, stared rudely at her, and passed on, while the poor child flushed, then paled, and looked ready to drop.  A moment later, the two proud misses shot by me, one of them remarking with curling lips and a toss of her head, ’Do you suppose that Mona Montague expects that we are going to recognize her now?’”