True Love's Reward / A Sequel to Mona

by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

"She also wished me to marry the child of an intimate friend, and take her with me. She had been planning this marriage for years and had threatened, if I disappointed her, to leave all her money to some one else.

"Now comes my second sin against your mother. If I had been loyal and true, I should have frankly told my aunt of my love for Mona Forester, and that I could never marry another woman, fortune or no fortune. But I shirked the duty—I thought something might happen before my return to give me the fortune, and then I should be free to choose for myself; so I led Miss Dinsmore to believe that on my return I would marry Miss Barton. I wanted the fortune—I loved money and the pleasure it brought, but I did not want Miss Barton for a wife. She was proud and haughty—a girl bound up in the world and fashion, and I did love sweet and amiable Mona Forester.

"Now my third sin: I was selfish. I could not bear the thought of leaving my love behind, and so I persuaded her to a secret marriage, and to go to Europe with me. I never should have done this; a man is a coward and knave who will not boldly acknowledge his wife before the world. I hated myself for my weakness, yet had not strength of purpose to do what was right. We sailed under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Richmond Montague, and Mona did not know that I had any other; but I took care that the marriage certificate was made out with my full name, so that the ceremony should be perfectly legal.

"We were very happy, for I idolized my young wife, and our life for six months was one of earth's sweetest poems. We traveled a great deal during the summer, and then settled in Paris for the winter. We had rooms in a pleasant house in a first-class locality; our meals were served in our own dining-room, and everything seemed almost as homelike as if we had been in America.

"One day I took a sudden freak that I wanted to go hunting. Mona begged me not to go; she was afraid of fire-arms, and feared some accident. But I laughed at her fears, told her that I was an expert with a gun, and went away in spite of her pleadings, little thinking I should never see my darling again. I did meet with an accident—I fell and sprained my ankle very badly, and lay for several hours in a dense forest unable to move.

"Finally some peasants found me, and took me to their cottage, but it was too late to send news of my injury to Paris that night. But the next morning early I sent the man of the house—who was going through the city on his way to visit some friends for a week, with a letter to Mona, telling her to take a carriage and come to me. She did not come, and I heard nothing from her. I could not send to her again, for there was no one in the cottage to go, and no neighbor within a mile. I was terribly anxious, and imagined a hundred things, and at the end of a week, unable to endure the suspense any longer, I insisted upon being taken back to Paris in spite of the serious condition of my foot and ankle.

"But, oh, my child, the tidings that met me there were such as to drive the strongest mind distracted. The landlord told me that my wife had fled with the butler of the house. At first I laughed in his face at anything so absurd, but when he flew into a towering passion and accused me of having brought disgrace upon his house by living there unlawfully with a woman who was not my wife, I began to think there must be some truth in his statements. In vain I denied the charge; he would not listen to me, and drove me also from his dwelling.

"I was too lame and helpless to attempt to follow Mona, but I set a detective at work to find my wife, for I still had faith in her, and thought she might be the victim of the landlord's suspicions. The detective traced her to London, and brought me word that a couple answering the description of my wife and the butler had crossed the channel on a certain date, and had since been living under the same roof in London.

"Then I cursed my wife, and said I would never trust a human being again. I was a long time getting over my lameness, but I still kept my detective on the watch, and one day he came to me with the intelligence that the butler had deserted his victim, and the lady was ill, and almost destitute.

"That Mona should want or suffer, under any circumstances, was the last thing I could wish, even though I then firmly believed that she had deserted me; while the thought that my child might even lack the necessities of life, was sufficient incentive to make me hasten at once to her relief. But I have told you, Mona, that she was dead, and I found only a weak and helpless baby to need my care. The nurse told me that the lady had wanted to go to America several weeks previously, but her physician had forbidden her to attempt to cross the ocean. She told me that a gentleman had taken the room for her and had been very kind to her, but the lady had been very unhappy and ill most of the time, since coming to the house. I questioned her closely, but evidently Mona had made a confidante of no one, and she had lived very quietly, seldom going out, and seeing no one. I could not reconcile this with the fact of her having eloped with the butler, and I realized all too late that I should have come to her the moment I learned where she was, demanded an explanation, and at least given her a chance to defend herself. My darling might have lived, if I had done so, and my child would not have been motherless.