“Can it be possible that I have made a mistake and got into the wrong carriage?” said Louis, with well-feigned surprise.  “There were two going to the same hotel, and she must be in the other.  She is safe enough, however, and it is too late for us to change now,” he concluded, as the vehicle started.

Mona was very uncomfortable, but she could not well help herself, and so was obliged to curb her anxiety and impatience as best she could.

A ride of fifteen or twenty minutes brought them to the door of a large and handsome hotel, where they alighted, and Louis, giving her bag and wrap to the porter, who came bowing and smiling to receive them, told Mona to follow him into the house while he looked after the trunks.

Without suspecting the truth, although she was sure she had never been in that portion of the city before, the young girl obeyed, but as she stepped within the handsomely lighted entrance, she was both confused and alarmed by the fact that she could not understand a word of the language that was being spoken around her, while she now observed that the hotel had a strangely foreign air about it.

“There is something very wrong about this,” she said to herself.  “It does not seem like New York at all, and I do not like the idea of Mrs. Montague keeping herself so aloof from me.  Even if she were sick, or angry with me, she might at least have shown some interest in me.  I do not like Louis Hamblin’s manner—­he does not appear natural.  I wish—­oh, I wish I had gone home by rail.  I am sure this is not New York.  I am afraid there is something wrong.”

She arose and walked about the room, into which the porter had shown her, feeling very anxious and trembling with nervousness.  It was very strange, too, that Louis did not make his appearance.

Even while these thoughts occupied her mind he came into the room, and Mona sprang toward him.

“What does this mean?” she demanded, confronting him with blazing eyes and burning cheeks.

“What does what mean?” he asked, but his glance wavered before hers.

“This strange hotel—­these foreign-looking, foreign-speaking people?  Why does not Mrs. Montague come to me?  Everything is very mysterious, and I want you to explain.”

“Aunt Margie has gone to her room, and—­” Louis began, ignoring every other question.

“I do not believe it!” Mona interrupted, with a sinking heart, as the truth began to dawn upon her.  “I have not seen her since we left New Orleans.  I have seen only you.  There is some premeditated deception in all this.  I do not believe that we are in New York at all.  Where are we?  I demand the truth.”

Louis Hamblin saw that he could deceive her no longer; he had not supposed he could keep the truth from her as long as he had.

“We are in Havana, Cuba,” he braced himself to reply, with some appearance of composure, which he was far from feeling.