“Havana!—­Cuba!” cried Mona, breathlessly.  “Ah! that explains the foreign language—­and I do not know Spanish.”  Then facing him again with an air and look that made him cower, in spite of his bravado, she sternly asked:  “Why are we here?”

“We are here in accordance with Mrs. Montague’s plans,” he answered.

“Mrs. Montague had no right to bring me here without consulting me,” the young girl returned, passionately.  “Where is Mrs. Montague?”

“I expect that Aunt Marg is in New York by this time,” Louis Hamblin now boldly asserted.

“What?” almost shrieked Mona, smitten to the heart with terror at this intelligence.  “Oh! you cannot mean to tell me that you and I have come to Havana alone!  That—­that—­”

A hot blush mounted to her forehead, and for a moment she was utterly overcome with shame and horror over the terrible situation.

“Yes, that is just what we have done,” Louis returned, a desperate gleam coming into his eyes, for he began to realize that he had no weak spirit to deal with.

There was a prolonged and ominous silence after this admission, while Mona tried to rally her sinking spirits and think of some plan of escape from her dreadful position.

When she did speak again she was white to her lips, but in her eyes there shone a resolute purpose which plainly indicated that she would never tamely submit to the will of the man before her.

“How have you dared to do this thing?” she demanded, but so quietly that he regarded her in astonishment.

“I have dared because I was bound to win you, Mona, and there seemed no other way,” he returned, in a passionate tone.

“And did you imagine for one moment that you could accomplish your purpose by decoying me into a strange country?”

“Yes; but, Mona—­”

“Then you have yet to learn that you have made a great mistake,” was the haughty rejoinder.  “It is true that I am comparatively helpless in not being able to understand the language here; but there are surely people in Havana—­there must even be some one in this hotel—­who can speak either French or German, if not English, and to whom I shall appeal for protection.”

“That will do you little good,” retorted Louis, flushing with anger at the threat, “and I may as well tell you the truth first as last.  Mona, you will have to give yourself to me, you will have to be my wife.  Mrs. Montague and I have both decided that it shall be so, and we have taken pains to prevent any failure of our plan.  You may appeal as much as you wish to people here—­they cannot understand you, and you will only lay yourself liable to scandal and abuse; for, Mona, you and I came to Havana, registered as man and wife, and our names stand upon the register of this hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Hamblin, of New York, where already the story of our elopement from New Orleans has become the talk of the town.”

The deadly truth was out at last, and Mona, smitten with despair, overcome by the revelation of the dastardly plot of which she was the victim, sank helplessly upon the nearest chair, quivering with shame and horror in every nerve, and nearly fainting from the shock which the knowledge of her terrible danger had sent vibrating through her very soul.