“No, indeed, Ray,” and she put out both her hands to him, with an eagerness that entirely reassured him even before she added:  “I cannot tell you how glad, how restful, how content I am since your coming to-night.  I was so lonely and sorrowful, the future looked so dark and cheerless because I feared I had lost you; but now all is bright.”

She dropped her face again upon his breast to hide the blushes this confession had called up, and the happy tears also that were dropping from her long lashes.

He gathered her close to his heart, thrilling at her words.

“Then I will try to be patient for three months, love,” he murmured, “and meantime I suppose you will have to be Ruth Richards to me as well as to others.”

“Yes, it will not do to have my real name known—­that will spoil all,” Mona replied, with a sigh, for her truthful soul recoiled with as much aversion from all deception as he possibly could do.

“And am I not to see you during all this time?” Ray ruefully asked.

“Oh, yes; not to see you would be unbearable to me,” Mona responded quickly.  “Can you not manage to have some one introduce me to you as Miss Richards while you are here? then neither Mrs. Montague nor any one else would think it strange if you should seek me occasionally; only—­”

“Only what?” inquired the young man, wondering to see her color so vividly and appear so embarrassed.

“Perhaps I should not tell you,” Mona said, with some hesitation, “and yet you must learn the fact sooner or later from some other sources; but Mrs. Montague appears to be growing quite fond of your father, who is very attentive to her, and she might not exactly like—­”

“She might not like to have the son of the man for whom she is angling to pay attention to her seamstress, is what you were going to say?” Ray interposed, laughing, yet with a look of annoyance sweeping over his fine face.

“Something like it, perhaps,” Mona responded, flushing again.

“Well, I do not believe she is going to land her fish, if you will pardon the slang phrase,” said the young man, confidently.  “My father has successfully resisted the allurements of the gentler sex for too many years to succumb at this late day; so you and I need give ourselves no uneasiness upon that score.  Does he know you as Ruth Richards?”

“Yes, if indeed he knows me at all.  I have received no introduction to him, and I only knew him from hearing Mr. Wellington greet him and inquire regarding the lost diamonds,” Mona explained.  Then she added:  “Do you expect to recover them, Ray? have you any clew?”

“Yes, we have a slight one, we think, and that is one reason why I am here to-night.  The detective in our employ sent a telegram to my father yesterday mentioning the fact, but he thought it best for me to come up to-night and talk the matter over more fully with him, and hurry him back to New York early on Tuesday morning.  A woman is being shadowed upon the suspicion of having committed a bold swindle in Chicago, and Mr. Rider thinks, without any doubt, that she is the same person who so cleverly did us out of our diamonds.”