I can never be your wife, for--perhaps, under the circumstances,
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 embarrassed 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 embarrassment
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 n