th pain and passion. "Oh! if I had only destroyed that
marriage certificate you would never have triumphed over me like this;
you would never have learned the truth about yourself."

"Oh, yes, I should," Mona composedly returned, "and even my trip to New
Orleans resulted advantageously to me."

"How so?" questioned her enemy, with a start, and regarding her with a
frown.

"An accident revealed to me, on the last night of our stay there, the
whole truth about myself. Up to that time I was entirely ignorant of the
fact that my supposed uncle was my father, for I knew nothing about the
discovery of the certificate until my return from Havana."

"What do you mean?--what accident do you refer to?" Mrs. Montague asked.

"The day I was eighteen years old I asked my father some very close
questions regarding my parentage, of which I had been kept very ignorant
all my life. Some of them he answered, some of them he evaded, and, on
the whole, my conversation with him was very unsatisfactory; for I really
did not know much more about myself and my father and mother at its close
than at its beginning.

"On the same day he gave me a small mirror that had once belonged to
Marie Antoinette, and which, he said, had been handed down as an heirloom
in my mother's family for several generations. This mirror he cautioned
me never to part with; and so, when I went South with you, I packed it
with my other things in my trunk. That last evening in New Orleans,
while removing and repacking some clothing I dropped the book containing
my mirror. When I picked it up I discovered that it contained a secret
drawer in its frame. In the drawer there were some letters, a box
containing two rings belonging to my mother and a full confession,
written by my father upon the very day that he had presented me with
the royal keepsake.

"So," Mona concluded, "you perceive that even had you destroyed the
certificate proving their marriage, I should have other and sufficient
proof that I was the child of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Dinsmore."

"Oh! if I had only forced the sale of all his property and gone back at
once to California, I should have escaped all this and kept my fortune,"
groaned the unhappy woman, in deep distress.

"Really, Mrs. Dinsmore, you are showing anything but a right
spirit--" Mr. Corbin began, in a tone of reproof, when she interrupted
him with passionate vehemence.

"Never address me by that name," she cried. "Do you suppose I wish