“Why!” she cried, “I should think we were out at sea!”

She looked greatly disturbed, but just at that moment she saw Louis Hamblin coming toward her, and she noticed that he also looked somewhat pale, as if he, too, had been suffering from sea-sickness.

“You are really better,” he smilingly observed as he reached her side; “you have had a severe siege as well as I.”

“Then you have been sick?” Mona observed, but turning away from the intense look which he bent upon her.

“Indeed, I have.  I have but just ventured out of my berth,” he returned, shrugging his shoulders over painful memories.

“How is Mrs. Montague?  I have not seen her since we left New Orleans,” Mona inquired.

A peculiar look came into Louis Hamblin’s eyes.

“Well, she has been under the weather, too, and has not cared to see any one,” he said.  “She simply wants to be let alone, like most people who suffer from sea-sickness.”

“That accounts for her absence and silence,” thought Mona.  Then she asked:  “Is it not very strange that we do not see the banks of the river?  One would almost imagine that we were far out at sea.”

Again that peculiar look swept over the young man’s face.

“And so we are,” he quietly answered, after a momentary pause.

“What?” exclaimed Mona, in a startled tone, and turning her blanched face upon him with a look of terror.

“Do not be excited, Miss Montague,” he coolly observed.  “Aunt Margie simply took a sudden freak to go home by sea; she thought the voyage would be beneficial to her.  She did not confide her plans to you, as she feared you would object and insist upon going home alone by rail.”

Mona flushed hotly.  She was very indignant that Mrs. Montague should have done such a thing without consulting her, and she deeply regretted that she had not insisted upon acting according to her own wishes.

She had no suspicion even now of the wretched deception that had been practiced upon her, but she did not now wonder so much that the woman had so persistently kept out of her way, and she felt so angry that she did not care to meet her again until they should land.

“When shall we get to New York?” she inquired, in a low, cold tone.

“We shall land some time this evening,” Louis Hamblin evasively replied, but watching her with curious interest.

Mona gave utterance to a sigh of relief, but did not appear to notice how he had worded his sentence.

She believed that in a few hours more she would forever sever all connections with this bold, bad woman who had been guilty of so much wrong; that she would forever be freed from the society and attentions of her no less unprincipled and disagreeable nephew.

She resolved to go at once to Mr. Graves, then send word to Ray of her return, when she would reveal all that she had learned about herself, and all her troubles would be over.  There was now no reason why she should not become his wife as soon as he desired.