MONA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12625, 4 August 1904, Page 3

MO N A.

— m - ■— BY ICES. GE-OEGIE SHELDON". • „ Author of " Trixy," " Brownie's Truimpn, " Earle Wayne's Nobility," " Queen Bess, " The Forsaken Bride," " His Heart 3 Queen," etc., etc. CHAPTER XVlll.—(Continued.) She even shed a few tears of regret, for she was young and buoyant, and would dearly have loved to join that gay company of youths and maidens, if she could have done so as an equal. But after a few moments she bravely ■wiped away the crystal drops, saying: "I will not grieve I will not give up to anything until I have seen Bay. If he is true the world will be bright, though everybody else gives me the cold shoulder-and he will be her© to-morrow. But I . am a trine lonely, all by myself in this great house. I believe I will run down to the music-room- and play for a little while. -No one is here to be disturbed by it, and I shall not- be afraid of critics." _ _ . , So she went slowly down the dimly-light-ed stairs to -a room on the right of th« hall, where, without even turning up the gas, she seated herself at the pia>so. She played a'few select from Beethoven's "Songs Without Words," sang a ballad or two, and was just upon the point of getting up to look for a book of Sabbath hymns, when a step behind her caused her to turn to ascertain who was intruding upon her solitude. • She saw standing in the doorway leading from the hall, a tall form, clad ia-. a long overcoat and holding his hat in his hand. x She could not distinguish his features, but courteously arose to go forward to see who the stranger was, when he spoke, and his tones thrilled her instantly to the very centre of her being. - " Pardon me," he began. " I rang the bell, but 110 one answered it, and, the door being ajar, I ventured to enter. Can you tell me— All! —Mona!" The .speaker had also advanced into the room as he spoke, but the light was too dim for him to recognise its occupant until he reached her side, although she had known him the instant he spoke. His start and exclamation of surprise, the glad, almost exultant tone as ho uttered her name, told the fair girl all she ueeded to know to prove that Bay Palme., was loyal to her, in spite of all the reverses of fortune, of friends, of position, and to prove him the noble character she had always believed him to be. He stretched forth an eager hand, and grasped hers with a fervour which told her how deeply he was moved to find her, even before his words confirmed it. " Oh ! I have not made a mistake, have I?" he asked, bending his luminous face closer to hers, eager to read a welcome there. "I have found you— last? If you knew —if 1 could tell you But first .tell me that you are glad to see me," he concluded, somewhat incoherently. Mona's hand lay unresisting in his clasp, and a feeling of restful peace filled her heart, as she lifted her glad face to him. " No, you have made no mistakeit is I, Mona Montague, and I am very"—with a little sub of joy, which she could not control —" very glad to see you again, Mr. Palmer." " My darling!" he said, made bold by her look, her tone, but more by the litle sob, which his own heart told him how to interpret. " Tell me yet more — cannot wait —I have been so hungry for the sight of your dear face, for the sound of your voice, and I thought that I had lost you. I love you, -Mona, with all my heart and strength, and this unexpected meeting has . so over- | come me that the truth must be told.. Are you still 'glad?'—will you make me glad by telling me so?" " But—Mr. Palmer Mona began, tremulously, hardly able to credit her ears, hardly able to believe that this great and almost overwhelming joy was a reality, and not some illusive dream, " I am afraid you forget—" "What have I forgotten?" lie gently ask' ed, but without releasing her hand. " That my uncle is gone. I have no home, friends, position ! Do you know— " 1 know that you are Mona Montague— that I love you. and that I have found you," lie interrupted, his own voice quivering with repressed emotion, his strong frame trembling with eager longing, mingled with something of fear that- his suit might be rejected. "Then I am glad," breathed Mona, and the next moment she was folded close to Raymond Palmer's manly bosom, where she could feel tho beating of the strong, true, loyal heart of her lover, while, with his lips pressed upon her silken hair., he murmured fond words, which betrayed how deep and absorbing his affection was for her— how he had longed for her and how bitterly he had suffered because he could not- find her. CHAPTER XIX. JtO.VA IS JOYFULLY SCKI'IUSED. " Then you do love me, Mona?" Ray whispered, fondly, after a moment or two of happy silence. " I must hear you say it, even though you have tacitly confessed it, and my heart exults in the knowledge. I cannot be quite satisfied until I have the blessed confirmation from your own lips." 1' on certainly can have no reason to ctoubt it, after such a betrayal as this," Mona tried to say, playfully, as sue lifted her flushed face from its resting place and shot a glad, bright look into his eves. Then she added, in a grave, though scarcely audible, voice, " Yes, I do love you with all my heart!" The. young man smiled: then,'with his arm still enfolding her, he led her beneath the chandelier and turned on a full blaze of light. " I must read the glad story in your eyes," lie said, tenderly, as lie bent to look into them. "I must see it shining in your face. -Ah, love, how beautiful you are still. And yet there is a sad droop to these lips" — and he touched them softly with his. own — "that pains me; there is a heaviness about these eyes wlueh tells of trial and sorrow. } My darling, how you have needed comfort and sympathy, while I was bound hand and foot, and could not come to you. What did you think of me, dear? But you knew, of course." "I knewl hoped there was some good reason," faltered Mona, with downcast eyes. "You 'hoped!' Then you did think — you feared that I, like other false friends, had turned the cold shoulder on you in your trouble?" he returned, a sorrowful reproach in his tones. " Surely you have known about the stolen diamonds?" " Yes. I knew that your father had been robbed." ! " And about my having been kidnapped also—the papers were full of the story." Mona looked up. astonished. "Kidnapped!" she exclaimed. "No; this is the first that I have heard of that." Where have you been that you have not seen the papers?" Ray inquired, wonderiugly. ■ "As you doubtless know," Mona replied, "Uncle Waller died very suddenly the day after I attended the opera with you, and for a fortnight afterward I was so overcome j with grief and—other troubles, that I scarcely looked at a paper. After that, one day, I saw a brief item referring to the robbery, and it is only since I came here that I had even a hint that you bad been ill." " Came, then, dear, and let me tell you about it, and then 1 am sure you will ab- j solve me from all wilful neglect," Ray said, as he led her to a tete-a-tete and seated himself beside her. " But first tell me," he added, " how I happen to find you here. Are you one of the guests?"" "No." Mona said, blushing slightly. " You know, of course, that I lost home am l everything else when I lost Uncle Walter, and now 1 am simply acting as seamstress and waiting-maid to a Mrs. Montague, who is a guest here." " Ah!" exclaimed Che young man with a start-, as he remembered how Airs. Montague. bad denied all knowledge of Mona. " I have met the ladv—is she a relative of yours?" "No; at least, 1 never saw her until I entered her bouse to serve her." " My poor child ! to think that you should have to go out to do such work," said Ray, with tender regret. " But, of course, as you say, I can understand all about it, for that, too, was in the papers; but it was very heartless, very cruel in that Mrs. Dinsmore not to make 'you tiny allowance, when

she could not fail to know that your uncle wished you to inherit his property. She must be a very obnoxious sort of person; isn't she?" "I do not know," said Mona, with a sigh ; " I have never seen herat least, not since I was a little child, and too young to remember anything about her." "Do you mean that you did not meet her during the contest for Mr. Diusmore's fortune?" questioned Ray in surprise. " No, she did not appear at all personally; all her business was transacted through her lawyer, as mine was through Mr. Graves," Mona answered. 'Well, it was an inhuman thing for her to do, to take everything and leave you penniless, and obliged to earn your own living. But that is all over now," the young man said, looking fondly into the fair face ' beside him. " Isn't it, darling? I You have told me that you love me, but you have not yet- promised me anything. You are going to be my wife, are 1 you not, Mona?" " I hope —if you wish— time," she answered, naively, yet with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes. He laughed out gladly as ho again embraced her. "' Some time, if I wish,'" he repeated. "Well, I do wish, and the some time must bo very soon. too. Ah, my sweet, browneyed girlie! how happy I am at this moment! I did not dream that I was to find such a wealth of joy whim I came hither at my father's earnest request. I was grieving so for you I had no heart for the gaieties which I knew I should find here; now, however, I shall not find it difficult to be as guy as anyone. How glad I am, too, that I came to-night to find you here alone. My father does not expect me until to-morrow ; but I had a matter of importance to talk over with him, so ran up on the evening train. Bub I am forgetting that I have a thrilling story to tell you." He thou related all that had occurred in connection with the bold diamond' robbery and his imprisonment and-subsequent illness in Dr. Wesselhoffs retreat for nervous patients, while Mona listened with wonderwide eyes and a paling cheek, as she realised the danger through which her lover had passed. "What an audacious scheme!" she exclaimed, when be concluded, "how could any woman dare to plan, much less put it into execution? No wonder that you were ill, and you must have been very "sick, for you are still thin and pale," Mona said, regarding him anxiously. "I shall now soon outgrow that," Ray responded, smiling. "It was chiefly anxiety and unhappiness on your account that kept ime thin and pale. You will see how quickly I shall recover my normal condition now , that T have found vou and know that von ; aro all my own. Now tell me all about I your own troubles, my darling. Do you know, it seems an age to me since we parted that night at your uncle's door, and you gave me permission to call upon you? Mv intention then was to seek an interview with Mr. Dinsmore within a clay or two. tell him of my love for you. and ask his permission to address you. But, even had no misfortune overtaken me, I could not have done so, since he was stricken that very night; but at least I could have come to vou with words ot sympathy." Mona then gave him a detailed account of all that had happened during those dark days, when her only friend lay dead and she felt as if all the worid had forsaken her. j "Mona," the young man gravely said, when site had finished heir story, " I shall tell my father to-night of this interview—he \ already knows that I love you— ask his sanction to our immediate marriage, for I cannot have you remain here among my j friends and acquaintances another day in the { capacity of a seamstress or waiting-maid." " But, Ray—" Mona began ; then she stopped shorty blushing rosily at having thus involuntarily called him by his Christian name. She had always thought of him thus, and it ptissed her lips before she was aware of it. He laughed out, amused at her contusion. " There, dear, you have broken the ice almost without knowing it," he said; * now we shall get on nicely if you do not Jet it freeze over again; but what were you going to say?" " I was going to ask you not to speak of — our relations to each other to anyone just yet," Mon« returned, with some pmbarrassment. "Why not?" Ray demanded, astonislied and looking troubled by the request. "There are reasons why I must remain for a while longer with Mrs. Montague,'" said the young girl. "Not in the capacity of waiting-maid," Bay asserted, decidedly; "I cannot allow that." " Indeed I must. Ray," Mona persisted, but with an appealing note in her voice; "and I will tell you why. I told vou that Mrs. Montague was no relative; she is not really, and yet —she was my father's second wife." (To he continued).