"How could you conspire against me in such a way? How could you aid your nephew in so foul a wrong?"
"I have already told you—to make our fortunes secure," was the cool retort.
Mona shuddered. It seemed such a heartless thing to do, to plan the ruin of a homeless, unprotected girl for the sake of money.
Mrs. Montague noticed it, and smiled bitterly.
"You surely did not suppose I bore you any love, did you?" she sneered. "I have told you how I hated your mother, and it is but natural that the feeling should manifest itself against her child, especially as you both had usurped the affections of my husband."
"Such a spirit is utterly beyond my comprehension," gravely said the girl, "when your only possible reason for such hatred of a beautiful girl was that my father loved and married her."
"Well, and wasn't that enough?" hotly exclaimed Mrs. Montague. "For years Walter Dinsmore's aunt had intended that he should marry me—that was the condition upon which he was to have her fortune—and I had been reared with that expectation. Therefore, it was no light grief when I learned by accident, three weeks after he sailed for Europe, that he had married a girl who had come to New York to earn her living as a milliner. They went abroad together and registered as Mr. and Mrs. Richmond Montague. I was wild, frantic, desperate, when I discovered it; but I kept the matter to myself. I did not wish Miss Dinsmore to learn the fact, for I had a plan in my mind which I hoped might yet serve to give me the position I so coveted. I persuaded Miss Dinsmore that it would be wise to let me follow Walter to Europe, and I promised her that if such a thing were possible, I would return as his wife. Six weeks after he sailed with his bride, I also left for Europe with some friends. I kept track of the unsuspicious couple for four months, but it was not until they settled in Paris for the winter that I had an opportunity to put any of my plans into action."
"If you please, Mrs. Montague, I would rather you would not tell me any more," Mona here interrupted, with a shiver of repulsion. "My father wrote out the whole story, and so I know all about it. You accomplished your purpose and wrecked the life of a pure and beautiful woman—a loved and loving wife; but truly I believe if my mother could speak to-day she would say that she would far rather have suffered the wrong and wretchedness to which she was subjected than to have exchanged places with you."
"Do you dare to twit me of my present extremity and misery?" cried Mrs.
Montague, angrily.
"Not at all; I was not thinking of these later wrongs of which you have been guilty," Mona gently returned, "but only of the ruin which you wrought in the lives of my father and mother. I cannot think that you were happy even after you had succeeded in your wretched plots."