"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 to be known as the widow of the man who repudiated me? Never! That was why I adopted the name of Montague, and I still wish to be known as such. Ah!—but if I have to go to—Oh, pray plead for me!" she cried, turning again to Mona; "do not let them send me to prison."