Louis angrily insisted that there had, and in company with the landlord and the interpreter, he returned to Mona’s room to prove his statement.

At first the affair was a great mystery, and created considerable excitement, but it was finally remembered that Americans had occupied the adjoining rooms, and it was therefore concluded that the young girl had managed in some way to make her situation known to them, and they, having left that morning, had, doubtless, assisted her in her flight.

“Who were they, and where were they going?” Louis demanded, in great excitement.

“Cutler was the name, and they had left early to take the steamer for New York,” they told him.

“What was her hour for sailing?” cried the young man.

“Nine-thirty,” he was informed.

Louis looked at his watch.

It lacked fifteen minutes of the time.

“A carriage! a carriage!” he cried, as he dashed out of the hotel and down the steps at a break-neck pace.

He sprang into the first vehicle he could find, made the driver understand that he wanted him to hasten with all possible speed to the New York steamer, and enforced his wishes by showing the man a piece of glittering gold.

He was terribly excited; his face was deathly white, and his eyes had the look of a baffled demon.  But he was not destined to have the satisfaction of even seeing Mona, for he reached the pier just in season to see the noble steamer sailing with stately bearing slowly out into the harbor, and he knew that the fair girl was beyond his reach.

Meantime, as soon as she had seen Louis and Mona safely on board the steamer, bound for Havana, Mrs. Montague, instead of going into the stateroom that had been engaged for her only as a blind, slipped stealthily back upon deck, hastened off the boat, and into her carriage, which had been ordered to wait for her, and was driven directly to the railway station, where she took the express going northward.

She did not spare herself, but traveled day and night until she reached New York, when she immediately sent a note to Mr. Palmer, notifying him of her return and desire to see him.

He at once hastened to her, for she had intimated in her communication that she was in trouble, and upon inquiring the cause of it, she informed him, with many sighs and expressions of grief, that her nephew and prospective heir had eloped with her seamstress.

Mr. Palmer looked amazed.

“With that pretty, modest girl, whom you had at Hazeldean with you?” he exclaimed, incredulously.

“Yes, with that pretty, modest girl,” sneered Mrs. Montague.  “These sly, quiet things are just the ones to entrap a young man like Louis, and there is poor Kitty McKenzie who will break her heart over the affair.”

The wily widow’s acting was very good, and Mr. Palmer sympathized with her, and used his best efforts to comfort her.  But all that Mrs. Montague had cared to do was to set the ball rolling so that Ray might get it, and gradually led the conversation into a more interesting channel, and they discussed at length the subject of their own approaching union.