Her companion noticed the flush, and an eager look flashed into his eyes, while his lips trembled with the torrent of burning words which he longed to pour into her ears. But he controlled himself for the moment, and continued:

"You ask me if I will give you the tangible proof of your mother's marriage. I have told you that I can do so; that I know the whole story of the elopement and the desertion. I can produce absolute proof that Mona Forester was a legal wife."

"Then give it to me--give it to me and I will believe that you are my friend," Mona cried, appealingly, and trembling with excitement at his statement.

"I will do so gladly," the young man said, a smile of triumph curling his lips, "but I can only do so conditionally."

"Conditionally?" repeated Mona, her great eyes flashing up to his face with a startled look.

"Yes. I can produce the certificate proving your father's and mother's honorable marriage. I can give you letters that will also prove it, and prove, too, that your father was not quite so disreputable and heartless as you have been led to believe. There is also a picture of him, painted on ivory, and set in a frame of gold, embellished with costly stones, which he had made for his wife, and there are valuable jewels and other keepsakes which he bestowed upon her with lavish hands, and which now rightly belong to you. All these I will give you if--if you will marry me--if you will be my wife, Mona."

The girl sprang to her feet, every atom of color now gone from her face, and confronted him with haughty mien.

"_Your wife_!" she began, pantingly. But he would not let her go on--he meant at least to explain himself more fully before allowing her to reject him.

"Yes, why not?" he asked, throwing into his tone all the tenderness he could command, "for I love you, Mona, with all my heart. I have told you so once before, but you would not believe me. You taunted me with unworthy motives, and a.s.serted that I would not dare to confess my affection to my aunt; but I have confessed it, and she is willing that I should win you. I know that I have paid devoted attention to Kitty McKenzie, as you also twitted me of doing, and Aunt Margie wanted me to marry her; but when she found that I had no love to give her, that my heart was set upon you, she yielded the point, and I now have her full and free consent to make you my wife. Do not scorn my suit, Mona; I cannot think of you as Ruth Richards any longer; do not curl your proud lips and flash your glorious eyes upon me with scorn, as you did that day at Hazeldean, for I offer you a warm and loyal heart. I know, that I am not worthy of you," he went on, flushing and speaking humbly for once, for he was terribly in earnest; "I have been guilty of a great many things which I have learned to regret, since I have known you; but I can conquer everything if you will give me your love as an incentive, and I will be a better man in the future. I will even _work_ for you, if you so despise the fortune which your father left and which I have expected to inherit from my aunt. Oh, Mona, do not despise my love for you, for it is the purest attribute of my nature, and--"

"Pray cease," Mona here interposed, for she felt unable to hear any more of this pa.s.sionate avowal, while she was greatly surprised and really moved by the depth of feeling which he evinced. "I would be the last one," she continued, in kind, grave tones, but with averted eyes and trembling lips, "to despise the true affection of any man. If I said anything to wound you that day at Hazeldean, I regret it now, although I felt at the time that you showed some disrespect in your manner of approaching me. But I cannot be your wife; if you make that the condition"--and her lips curled a trifle here--"of my learning the mystery regarding my father's desertion of my mother, and securing the proof of their marriage; then I must forever relinquish all such hopes, for I could never marry a man--"

"But," he interrupted, excitedly.

"Let me finish," she persisted, lifting her hand to stay his words. "No woman should ever become the wife of a man she cannot love. I do not love you, Mr. Hamblin, and knowing this, you would not respect me if I should yield to your suit. Let me a.s.sure you that I honor you for some things you said to-day--that you would be willing to work for one whom you loved; that you would even relinquish a fortune for her sake. Believe me, I respect you and appreciate such an avowal, and only regret that your regard could not have been bestowed upon some one who could return such devotion. I cannot, but, Mr. Hamblin, I feel more friendly toward you at this moment than I have ever felt before. I beg, however," she concluded, sadly, "that you will never address me thus again, for it gives me pain to know that any one's life should be marred through me; put this affection away from you--crush it in your heart, and seek some dear, good girl who will love you and make you happier than I possibly could, if I should yield to your suit without any heart to give you."

"Put this love out of my heart! crush it!" burst forth the young man, with pale lips. "Could you do that, Mona Montague, if the man you loved should stand coldly up before you and bid you to do so?"

Mona flushed, and hot tears sprang into her eyes. She knew, but too well, that she could never crush out of her heart her love for Raymond Palmer.

If Louis Hamblin had bestowed but a t.i.the of such affection upon her there was indeed a sad future in store for him, and the deepest sympathies of her nature were aroused for him.

"I am sorry--" she began, falteringly, as she lifted her swimming eyes to his face, and both look and tone stirred him to hot rebellion, for he knew well enough of what she had been thinking.

"How sorry are you?" he cried, in a low, intense tone; "sorry enough to try to do for me what you have bidden me do for another? Will you crush your love for Ray Palmer, and bestow it upon me?"

Mona recoiled beneath these fierce, hot words, while she inwardly resented the selfishness and rudeness of his question.

Still she tried to make some allowance for his bitter disappointment and evident suffering.

"I do not think you have any right to speak to me like that," she said, in tones of gentle reproof, though her face was crimson with conscious blushes.

"Have I no right to say to you what you have said to me?" he demanded.

"You have said that no woman should marry a man whom she does not love, while, in the very next breath you bid me go 'seek for some dear, good girl,' and ask her to marry me, who can never love any woman but you.

Are you considerate--are you consistent?"

"Perhaps not," she returned, sorrowfully, "but I did not mean to be inconsistent or to wound you--I could hardly believe that you cared so deeply! I hoped you might be mistaken in your a.s.sertion that no other affection could be rooted in your heart."

"There may be other natures besides your own that are capable of tenacious affection," he retorted, with exceeding bitterness.

"True," Mona said, sighing heavily, "but," driven to desperation, and facing him with sudden resolution, "I cannot respond to your suit as you wish; I can never be your wife, for--perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, I ought to make the confession--I am already pledged to another."

CHAPTER XII.

THE SECRET OF THE ROYAL MIRROR.

Mona's eyes were averted and she was greatly embarra.s.sed as she made the acknowledgment of her engagement, therefore she could not see the look of anger and evil purpose which suddenly swept every expression of tenderness from Louis Hamblin's face.

He could not speak for a moment, he was so intensely agitated by her confession.

"Of course, I cannot fail to understand you," he remarked, at last. "You mean that you are engaged to Ray Palmer, and that accounts for the attentions which he bestowed upon Ruth Richards at Hazeldean. You two were very clever, but even then I had read between the lines and knew what you have just told me."

"You knew, and yet presumed to make this avowal? You dared to ask another man's promised wife to marry you!" Mona exclaimed, all her embarra.s.sment now gone, her scornful eyes looking straight into his.

"Well, perhaps I should not say I knew, but I surmised," he confessed, his glance wavering beneath hers.

"That is but a poor apology," she retorted, in the same tone as before; "you certainly have betrayed but very little respect for me if you even 'surmised' the truth, and would ask me to regard my plighted troth so lightly as to break it simply to gratify your own selfishness."

"And your respect for me has waned accordingly, I suppose you would be glad to add," Louis Hamblin interposed, with a sneer.

Mona made him no answer. She began to think that she had overestimated the purity of his motives--that all her recent sympathy had been expended upon an unworthy object.

"You will not forget, however, that I made the promise to surrender certain proofs and keepsakes conditional upon your yielding to my suit,"

he added, with cold resoluteness.

"No honorable man would make such conditions with the woman he professed to love," retorted Mona, with curling lips.

"A man, when he is desperate, will adopt almost any measure to achieve his object," her companion responded, hotly.

"We will not argue the matter further, if you please," Mona said, frigidly, as she took up her book, which she had laid upon the table when she arose, and started to leave the room.

"Mona, do not go away like this--you shall not leave me in such a mood!"

the young man cried, as he placed himself in her path. "Do you not see that I am filled with despair--that I am desperate?"

"I am sorry," she answered, gravely, "but I can tell you nothing different--my answer is final, and your own sense of what is right should make you realize and submit to it."

"Then you do not care for the marriage certificate and other proofs?" he said.

Again the young girl's lips curled with infinite scorn.

"Did you suppose that my love and my hand were, like articles of merchandise, to be bought and sold?" she asked, with scathing sarcasm.

"Yes, I do care for--I do want the proofs; but they are not to be mentioned in connection with such sacred subjects," she went on, with dignity. "If you were really my friend you would never have suggested anything of the kind; you would have been glad to help me to any proof that would relieve my mind and heart from the hara.s.sing doubts regarding the history of my parents. If such proofs exist, as you claim, they rightly _belong_ to me, and you are uncourteous, not to say dishonorable, in keeping them from me."

"People are not in the habit of resigning important doc.u.ments simply for the sake of preserving themselves from the charge of discourtesy," Louis laconically observed.

"I am to understand from that, I suppose, that you will not give them to me," Mona remarked. "Well, since I _know_ that there was no blame or shame attached to my mother--since I know that she was only a victim to the wickedness of others--it will not matter so very much if I do not have the tangible proofs you possess, and I must try to be content without them."

She made another attempt to leave the room, but he still stood in her way.