He wondered at her strength of purpose and at her courage.  Many girls, finding themselves in such a woeful strait, would have been entirely overcome—­would have begged and pleaded in abject fear or weakly yielded to circumstances, and married him, but Mona only seemed to gather courage as difficulties closed around her.

She looked very lovely, too.  She had lost a little flesh and color during her illness on shipboard, and her face was more delicate in its outlines than usual.  She would have been very pale but for the spot of vivid scarlet that glowed on each cheek, and which was but the outward sign of the inextinguishable spirit that burned within her.  Her eyes gleamed with a relentless fire and her slight but perfect form was erect and resolute in its bearing.

Louis Hamblin for the moment felt himself powerless to combat with such mental strength, and ignoring entirely what she had just avowed, again asked: 

“Will you go to your room now?”

He did not wait for any reply, but touched a bell, and a waiter almost immediately appeared to answer the call.

Louis signified to him that his companion wished to retire, whereupon the man took her bag and wrap and motioned Mona to follow him.

With despair in her heart, but a dauntless mien, the fair girl obeyed, and crossing the wide entrance hall, mounted the great staircase to the second story.

As they were passing through a long upper hall a door suddenly opened, and a gentleman came out of one of the rooms.

Mona’s heart gave a leap of joy as she saw him, for she was almost sure that he was an American, and she was on the point of speaking to him, but he passed her so quickly she had no opportunity.

She was rejoiced, however, to observe that her guide stopped before the door of a room next to the one which the stranger had just left, and she resolved that she would listen for his return, and manage to communicate with him in some way before morning.

The porter threw open the door, and stood aside to allow her to pass in.

The room was lighted, and she saw that while it was not large, it was comfortably furnished, and her trunk stood unstrapped in one corner.  The next moment the door closed upon her, and she heard the key turned in the lock.

A bitter sob burst from her as she dashed the hot tears from her eyes, and a low, eager cry broke from her lips as she noticed that a door connected her room with the one from which the gentleman had issued a few moments before.

She sprang toward it, and turned the handle.

It was locked, of course.  She told herself she might have known it would be, but she had acted upon an uncontrollable impulse.

But as she released her hold upon the knob she thought she heard some one moving about within the other room.

Perhaps the gentleman had his wife with him, and impelled by a wild hope, Mona knocked upon a panel to attract attention, and the next moment she was sure she caught the rustle of skirts as some one glided toward her.