She covered her face with her hands, and tried to think, but her temples throbbed like hammers, her brain seemed on fire, and her mind was in a perfect chaos.

She sat thus for many minutes, until Louis Hamblin, who was hardly less excited than herself in view of his anxiety as to what would be the result of this critical interview, could endure the silence no longer, and quietly but kindly remarked: 

“Mona, I think it is best that you should go to your room and rest; it is late, and you are both weary and excited.  To-morrow we will talk this matter over again, and I hope that you will then be more reasonable.”

The sound of his voice aroused all her outraged womanhood, and springing to her feet again, she turned upon him with all the courage of a lioness at bay.

“I understand you,” she cried.  “I know why you and that unprincipled woman have so plotted against me.  You were afraid, in spite of what I told you the other night, that I would demand your fortune, if I once learned the whole truth about myself.  I have learned it, and I have the proof of it also.  A message came to me, after my interview with you, telling me everything.”

“I do not believe you,” Louis Hamblin faltered, but growing very pale at this unexpected information.

“Do you not?  Then let me rehearse a little for your benefit,” Mona continued, gathering courage as she went on, and in low but rapid tones she related something of the secret which she had discovered in the royal mirror—­enough to convince him that she knew the truth, and could, indeed, prove it.

“Now,” she continued, as she concluded this recital, “do you think that I will allow you to conquer me?  You have been guilty of a dastardly act.  Mrs. Montague has shown herself to be lacking in humanity, honor, and every womanly sentiment; but I will not be crushed; even though you have sought to compromise me in this dreadful way I will not yield to you.  Your wife I am not, and no writing me as such upon steamer and hotel registers can ever make me so.  You may proclaim from one end of New York to the other that I eloped with you from New Orleans, but it will not serve your purpose, and the one for whom I care most will never lose faith in me.  And, Louis Hamblin, hear me; the moment I find myself again among English-speaking people, both you and Mrs. Montague shall suffer for this outrage to the extent of the law.  I will not spare you.”

“That all sounds very brave, no doubt,” Louis Hamblin sneered, but inwardly deeply chagrined by her dauntless words and bearing, “but you are in my power, Miss Montague, and I shall take measures to keep you so until I tame that haughty spirit somewhat.  You will be only too glad to marry me yet, for I have gone too far in this matter to be balked now.  When you leave Havana you will go as Mrs. Louis Hamblin, or you will never go.”

“I would rather never go than as your wife, and I will defy you until I die!” was the spirited retort, and the man before her knew that she meant it.