It is impossible to convey any idea of the bitterness of the woman's tone, or the vindictiveness of her look, as she took from a velvet case the picture of a handsome young man, of perhaps twenty-five years, painted on ivory, and encircled with a costly frame of gold set with rubies.
"You loved her," she cried, fiercely, as she gazed with all her soul in her eyes upon that attractive face, while her whole frame shook with emotion. "Nothing was too costly or elegant for your petted darling; her slightest wish was your law, while for me you had scarcely a word or a look of affection; you were like ice upon which not even the lava-tide of my idolatry could make the slightest impression. Is it any wonder that I hated her for having absorbed all that I craved? Is it strange that I exulted when they drove her from her apartments in Paris, believing her to be a thing too vile to be tolerated by respectable people. Well, she had his love, but I had him—I vowed that I would win, and—I did."
But, evidently, the memory of her triumph was not a very comforting one, for she suddenly dropped her face upon the hands that still clasped the picture, and burst into a torrent of tears, while deep sobs shook her frame, and she seemed utterly overwhelmed by the tempest of her grief.
Surely in this woman's nature there were depths which no one, who had seen her the center of attraction in the thronged and brilliant drawing-rooms in high-life, would have believed possible to her.
Suddenly, in the midst of this unusual outburst, there came a knock upon the door.
The sound seemed to give her a terrible start in her nervous state.
She half sprang from her chair, a look of guilt and fear sweeping over her flushed and tear-stained face, the table before her gave a sudden lurch, and before she could put out her hand to save it, it went over and fell to the floor with a crash, spilling its contents, and snapping the lid to the secret compartment short off at its hinges.
"What is it?—who is there?" Mrs. Montague demanded, as she went toward the door, while she tried to control her trembling voice to speak naturally.
"What has happened?—I thought I heard a fall," came the response in the anxious tones of Mona's voice.
"Nothing very serious has happened," returned Mrs. Montague, frowning, for the girl, who so closely resembled the rival she hated, coming to her just at that moment, irritated her exceedingly. "I simply upset something just as you knocked. What do you want?"