The sound of his voice aroused all her outraged womanhood, and springing to her feet again, she turned upon him with all the courage of a lioness at bay.
"I understand you," she cried. "I know why you and that unprincipled woman have so plotted against me. You were afraid, in spite of what I told you the other night, that I would demand your fortune, if I once learned the whole truth about myself. I have learned it, and I have the proof of it also. A message came to me, after my interview with you, telling me everything."
"I do not believe you," Louis Hamblin faltered, but growing very pale at this unexpected information.
"Do you not? Then let me rehearse a little for your benefit," Mona continued, gathering courage as she went on, and in low but rapid tones she related something of the secret which she had discovered in the royal mirror—enough to convince him that she knew the truth, and could, indeed, prove it.
"Now," she continued, as she concluded this recital, "do you think that I will allow you to conquer me? You have been guilty of a dastardly act. Mrs. Montague has shown herself to be lacking in humanity, honor, and every womanly sentiment; but I will not be crushed; even though you have sought to compromise me in this dreadful way I will not yield to you. Your wife I am not, and no writing me as such upon steamer and hotel registers can ever make me so. You may proclaim from one end of New York to the other that I eloped with you from New Orleans, but it will not serve your purpose, and the one for whom I care most will never lose faith in me. And, Louis Hamblin, hear me; the moment I find myself again among English-speaking people, both you and Mrs. Montague shall suffer for this outrage to the extent of the law. I will not spare you."
"That all sounds very brave, no doubt," Louis Hamblin sneered, but inwardly deeply chagrined by her dauntless words and bearing, "but you are in my power, Miss Montague, and I shall take measures to keep you so until I tame that haughty spirit somewhat. You will be only too glad to marry me yet, for I have gone too far in this matter to be balked now. When you leave Havana you will go as Mrs. Louis Hamblin, or you will never go."
"I would rather never go than as your wife, and I will defy you until I die!" was the spirited retort, and the man before her knew that she meant it.
He wondered at her strength of purpose and at her courage. Many girls, finding themselves in such a woeful strait, would have been entirely overcome—would have begged and pleaded in abject fear or weakly yielded to circumstances, and married him, but Mona only seemed to gather courage as difficulties closed around her.
She looked very lovely, too. She had lost a little flesh and color during her illness on shipboard, and her face was more delicate in its outlines than usual. She would have been very pale but for the spot of vivid scarlet that glowed on each cheek, and which was but the outward sign of the inextinguishable spirit that burned within her. Her eyes gleamed with a relentless fire and her slight but perfect form was erect and resolute in its bearing.
Louis Hamblin for the moment felt himself powerless to combat with such mental strength, and ignoring entirely what she had just avowed, again asked: