The "dim religious light" was rather pleasant to her, in her tender mood, and she could see well enough for her purpose.
She ran her skilled fingers lightly over the keys of the sweet-toned instrument, and almost immediately her whole soul began to wake up to the rich harmony which she evoked.
She played a few selections from Beethoven"s "Songs Without Words," sang a ballad or two, and was just upon the point of getting up to look for a book of Sabbath hymns, when a step behind her caused her to turn to ascertain who was intruding upon her solitude.
She saw standing in the doorway leading from the hall, a tall form clad in a long overcoat and holding his hat in his hand.
She could not distinguish his features, but courteously arose to go forward to see who the stranger was, when he spoke, and his tones thrilled her instantly to the very center of her being.
"Pardon me," he began. "I rang the bell, but no one answered it, and, the door being ajar, I ventured to enter. Can you tell me--Ah!--_Mona_!"
The speaker had also advanced into the room as he spoke, but the light was too dim for him to recognize its occupant until he reached her side, although she had known him the instant he spoke.
His start and exclamation of surprise, the glad, almost exultant tone as he uttered her name, told the fair girl all she needed to know to prove that Ray Palmer was loyal to her, in spite of all the reverses of fortune, of friends, of position, and to prove him the n.o.ble character she had always believed him to be.
He stretched forth an eager hand, and grasped hers with a fervor which told her how deeply he was moved to find her, even before his words confirmed it.
"Oh! I _have_ not made a mistake, have I?" he asked, bending his luminous face closer to hers, eager to read a welcome there. "I _have_ found you--_at last_? If you knew--if I could tell you--But first tell _me_ that you are glad to see me," he concluded, somewhat incoherently.
Mona"s hand lay unresisting in his clasp, and a feeling of restful peace filled her heart, as she lifted her glad face to him.
"No, you have made no mistake--it is I, Mona Montague, and I am very"--with a little sob of joy, which she could not control--"very glad to see you again, Mr. Palmer."
"My darling!" he said, made bold by her look, her tone, but more by the little sob, which his own heart told him how to interpret. "Tell me yet more--I cannot wait--I have been so hungry for the sight of your dear face, for the sound of your voice, and I thought that I had lost you.
I love you, Mona, with all my heart and strength, and this unexpected meeting has so overcome me that the truth must be told. Are you still "glad"?--will you make _me_ glad by telling me so?"
"But--Mr. Palmer--" Mona began, tremulously, hardly able to credit her ears, hardly able to believe that this great and almost overwhelming joy was a reality, and not some illusive dream. "I am afraid you forget--"
"What have I forgotten?" he gently asked, but without releasing her hand.
"That my uncle is gone. I have no home, friends, position! Do you know--"
"I know that you are Mona Montague--that I _love_ you, and that I have _found_ you," he interrupted, his own voice quivering with repressed emotion, his strong frame trembling with eager longing, mingled with something of fear that his suit might be rejected.
"Then I _am_ glad," breathed Mona, and the next moment she was folded close to Raymond Palmer"s manly bosom, where she could feel the beating of the strong, true, loyal heart of her lover while with his lips pressed upon her silken hair he murmured fond words which betrayed how deep and absorbing his affection was for her--how he had longed for her and how bitterly he had suffered because he could not find her.
CHAPTER XIX.
MONA IS JOYFULLY SURPRISED.
"Then you do love me, Mona?" Ray whispered, fondly, after a moment or two of happy silence. "I must hear you say it even though you have tacitly confessed it and my heart exults in the knowledge. I cannot be quite satisfied until I have the blessed confirmation from your own lips."
"You certainly can have no reason to doubt it after such a betrayal as this," Mona tried to say playfully, to shield her embarra.s.sment, as she lifted her flushed face from its resting-place, and shot a glad, bright look into his eyes. Then she added in a grave though scarcely audible voice: "Yes I _do_ love you with all my heart!"
The young man smiled; then with his arm still infolding her he led her beneath the chandelier and turned on a full blaze of light.
"I must read the glad story in your eyes," he said, tenderly, as he bent to look into them. "I must see it shining in your face. Ah, love, how beautiful you are still! And yet there is a sad droop to these lips"--and he touched them softly with his own--"that pains me; there is a heaviness about these eyes which tells of trial and sorrow. My darling, you have needed comfort and sympathy, while I was bound hand and foot, and could not come to you. What did you think of me, dear? But you knew, of course."
"I knew--I hoped there was some good reason," faltered Mona, with downcast eyes.
"You "hoped!" Then you _did_ think--you _feared_ that I, like other false friends, had turned the cold shoulder on you in your trouble?" he returned, a sorrowful reproach in his tone. "Surely you have known about the stolen diamonds?"
"Yes, I knew that your father had been robbed."
"And about my having been kidnapped also--the papers were full of the story."
Mona looked up, astonished.
"Kidnapped!" she exclaimed. "No; this is the first that I have heard of that."
"Where have you been that you have not seen the papers?" Ray inquired, wonderingly.
"As you doubtless know," Mona replied, "Uncle Walter died very suddenly the day after I attended the opera with you, and for a fortnight afterward I was so overcome with grief and--other troubles, that I scarcely looked at a paper. After that, one day, I saw a brief item referring to the robbery, and it is only since I came here that I had even a hint that you had been ill."
"Come, then, dear, and let me tell you about it, and then I am sure you will absolve me from all willful neglect," Ray said, as he led her to a _tete-a-tete_ and seated himself beside her. "But first tell me," he added, "how I happen to find you here. Are you one of the guests?"
"No," Mona said, blushing slightly, "You know, of course, that I lost home and everything else when I lost Uncle Walter, and now I am simply acting as seamstress and waiting maid to a Mrs. Montague, who is a guest here."
"Ah!" exclaimed the young man, with a start, as he remembered how Mrs.
Montague had denied all knowledge of Mona. "I have met the lady--is she a relative of yours?"
"No; at least, I never saw her until I entered her house to serve her."
"My poor child! to think that you should have to go out to do such work,"
said Ray, with tender regret. "But of course, as you say, I can understand all about it, for that, too, was in the papers; but it was very heartless, very cruel in that Mrs. Dinsmore not to make you any allowance, when she could not fail to know that your uncle wished you to inherit his property. She must be a very obnoxious sort of person, isn"t she?"
"I do not know," said Mona, with a sigh; "I have never seen her--at least, not since I was a child, and too young to remember anything about her."
"Do you mean that you did not meet her during the contest for Mr.
Dinsmore"s fortune?" questioned Ray in surprise.
"No, she did not appear at all personally; all her business was transacted through her lawyer, as mine was through Mr. Graves," Mona answered.
"Well, it was an inhuman thing for her to do, to take everything and leave you penniless, and obliged to earn your own living. But that is all over now," the young man said, looking fondly into the fair face beside him. "Isn"t it, darling? You have told me that you love me, but you have not yet promised me anything. You are going to be my wife, are you not, Mona?"
"I hope so--if you wish--some time," she answered, naively, yet with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes.
He laughed out gladly as he again embraced her.
""Some time, if I wish,"" he repeated. "Well, I do wish, and the some time must be very soon, too. Ah, my sweet, brown-eyed girlie! how happy I am at this moment! I did not dream that I was to find such a wealth of joy when I came hither at my father"s earnest request. I was grieving so for you I had no heart for the gayeties which I knew I should find here; now, however, I shall not find it difficult to be as gay as any one. How glad I am, too, that I came to-night to find you here alone. My father does not expect me until to-morrow; but I had a matter of importance to talk over with him, so ran up on the evening train. But I am forgetting that I have a thrilling story to tell you."
He then related all that had occurred in connection with the bold diamond robbery and his imprisonment and subsequent illness in Doctor Wesselhoff"s retreat for nervous patients, while Mona listened with wonder-wide eyes and a paling cheek, as she realized the danger through which her lover had pa.s.sed.
"What an audacious scheme!" she exclaimed, when he concluded. "How could any woman dare to plan, much less put it into execution! No wonder that you were ill, and you must have been very sick, for you are still thin and pale," Mona said, regarding him anxiously.