She led him to Mr. Cutler and his sister, who had quietly withdrawn to a little distance—­for, of course, they took in the situation at once—­and performed the ceremony, when, to her surprise, Mr. Cutler cordially shook her lover by the hand, remarking, with his genial smile: 

“Mr. Palmer and I have met before, but my sister has not had that pleasure, I believe.”

Ray greeted them both with his habitual courtesy, and then in a frank, manly way, but with slightly heightened color, remarked: 

“My appearance here perhaps needs some explanation, but it will be sufficient for me to explain that Miss Montague is my promised wife.”

“I surmised as much, not long after making the young lady’s acquaintance,” Mr. Cutler remarked, with a roguish glance at Mona’s pink cheeks and downcast eyes.  “But,” he added, with some curiosity, “it is a puzzle to me how you should know that she would arrive in New York on this steamer to-day.”

Ray explained the matter to him, and then they all left the vessel together.

Mr. and Miss Cutler were to go to the Hoffman House, and invited Mona to be their guest during their stay in the city, but thanking them for their kindness, she said she thought it would be best for her to go directly to Mr. Graves, as she had business which she wished him to attend to immediately.

She also expressed again her gratitude to them for their exceeding kindness to her, and promised to call upon them very soon, then bidding them an affectionate good-by she left the wharf with her lover.

They went for a drive in Central Park before going to Mr. Graves, for Ray was anxious to learn all the story of the plot against her and to talk over their own plans for the future.

He found it very difficult to restrain his anger as she told him of her interview with Louis Hamblin in New Orleans, and how she had been decoyed upon the steamer for Havana, with the other circumstances of the voyage, and her arrival there.

“The villain will need to be careful how he comes in my way after this,” he said, with sternly compressed lips and a face that was white with anger.  “I will not spare him—­I will not spare either of those two plotters; but you shall never meet them again, my darling,” he concluded, with tender compassion in his tones, as he realized how much she must have suffered with them.

“I shall have to go to West Forty-ninth street once more, for I have a good many things there, and shall have to attend to their removal myself,” Mona returned, but looking as if she did not anticipate much pleasure from the meeting with Mrs. Montague.

“Well, then, if you must go there, I will accompany you,” Ray said, resolutely.  “I will never trust you alone with that woman again.  And now I have some good news to relate to you.”

He told her then of his discovery of the marriage certificate, and what he had done with it, after which she gave him a graphic account of the discoveries which she had made in the secret drawer of the royal mirror.