“Your uncle?  You mean Walter Dinsmore, I suppose?”

“Yes; of course.”

“How much of your history did he reveal to you?” questioned the young man, eagerly.

“I do not feel under any obligation to tell you that,” Mona coldly answered.

“Now, Miss Montague,” Louis said, with well assumed frankness and friendliness, “why will you persist in treating me as an enemy?  Why will you not have confidence in me, and allow me to help you?  I know your whole history—­I know, too, from what you have said, that you are ignorant of much that is vital to your interests, and which I could reveal to you, if I chose.  Now forget any unpleasantness that may have arisen between us, tell me just what you hoped to learn by remaining in my aunt’s family, and, believe me, I stand ready to help you.”

Mona lifted her great liquid brown eyes, and searched his face.

Oh, how she longed to know the truth about her mother; but she distrusted him—­she instinctively doubted his sincerity.

He read something of this in her glance, and continued, hoping to disarm her suspicions: 

“Of course you know that Aunt Margie is, or was, Richmond Montague’s second wife—­”

“Ah! by that statement you yourself virtually acknowledge that my mother was his first wife,” triumphantly interposed Mona.  “As I said before, my uncle assured me of the fact, but your admission is worth something to me as corroborative evidence.  All that I desire now is tangible proof of it; if you can and will obtain that for me, I shall have some faith in your assertion that you wish to help me.”

“Are you so eager to claim, as your father, the man who deserted your mother?” Louis Hamblin asked, with a sneer, and wishing to sound her a little further.

“No; I simply want proof that my mother was a legal wife—­I have only scorn and contempt for the man who wronged her,” Mona replied, intense aversion vibrating in her tones.  “I regard him, as my uncle did, as a knave—­a brute.”

“Did Walter Dinsmore represent him as such to you?” inquired her companion, in a mocking tone.

“He did; he expressed the utmost contempt and loathing for the man who had ruined his sister’s life.”

The young man gave vent to a short, derisive laugh.

“I cannot deny the justness of the epithets applied to him,” he said, with a sneer, “but, that such terms should have fallen from the immaculate lips of the cultured and aristocratic Walter Dinsmore, rather amuses me, especially as the present Mrs. Dinsmore might, with some reason, perhaps, bring the same charges against him.”

“Did you know my uncle?” Mona questioned, with some surprise.

“Not personally; but Mrs. Montague knew him very well years ago.”

“Oh!  I wonder if you could tell me—­” Mona began, greatly agitated, as she recalled the dreadful suspicion that had flashed into her mind regarding her uncle, in connection with her father’s death.