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.