True Love's Reward Part 13

"Certainly," and with a bow and smile he placed it conveniently for her.

She thanked him, and glanced eagerly at the last name written on the page.

"J.R. Walton, Sydney, Australia," she read, in a coa.r.s.e, irregular hand, as if the person writing it had been unaccustomed to the use of the pen.

Running her eye up the page, Mona also read, as if the name had been signed earlier in the day:

"Mrs. J.M. Walton, Brownsville, Mo."

"It would appear," mused Mona, as she left the office, "as if they are mother and son--that he had just returned from far Australia, and she had come here to meet him. But--I don't believe it! Walton--Walton! Where have I heard that name before?"

She could not place it, but she was so sure that these people were in some way connected with the Palmer robbery, she was determined to make an effort to establish the fact, and immediately leaving the hotel again, she sought the nearest telegraph office, and sent the following message to Ray:

"Send immediately piece of the ladies' cloth torn from dress."

This done she retraced her steps, and went directly up to her own room.

She found that Mrs. Montague had returned from making her calls, and was dressing for dinner.

She seemed a little disturbed about something, and finally it came out that the trip down the Mississippi would have to be delayed for a day or two longer than she had antic.i.p.ated, as one of her friends was not quite well enough to start immediately.

Mona was very glad to learn this, for she was sure that she should hear from Ray and receive the piece of dress goods; her only fear was that the Waltons might not remain at the hotel long enough for her to find an opportunity to fit the piece into the rent, to ascertain if it belonged there.

The earnestly desired letter reached her the next evening. Ray had been very expeditious. Receiving Mona's dispatch just before the southward mail closed, he had hastily inclosed the piece of cloth, with a few words, in an envelope, and so there was no delay.

She was certain, as she examined it, that it was exactly the same color as the dress she had seen the day before, and reasonably sure regarding the texture; but the great question now to be answered was: Would it fit the rent?

"Now I must find the dress, if possible, when the woman is wearing something else," Mona mused, with a troubled face, and beginning to think she had undertaken a matter too difficult to be carried out. "Perhaps she has no other dress here; how, then, am I going to prove my suspicion true, or otherwise?"

She knew that she could go to the authorities, tell her story, and have the woman and dress forcibly examined; but she could not bear to do anything that would make herself conspicuous, and it would be very disagreeable to carry the affair so far and then find she had made a lamentable mistake.

"If Ray were only here he would know what to do," she murmured, "but he isn't, and I must do the best I can without him. I must find out where the woman rooms. I must examine that dress!"

Fortune favored her in an unexpected way the very next morning.

The chambermaid who had charge of the floor on which their rooms were located, came, as usual, to put them in order, but with a badly swollen face, around which she had bound a handkerchief.

"Are you sick?" Mona asked, in a tone of sympathy, for the girl's heavy eyes and languid manner appealed very strongly to her kind heart.

"I have a toothache, miss," the girl said, with a heavy sigh. "I never slept a wink last night, it pained me so."

"I am very sorry, and of course you cannot feel much like work to-day, if you had no sleep," Mona said, pityingly.

"Indeed I don't--I can hardly hold my head up; but the work's got to be done all the same," was the weary reply.

"Cannot you get some one to subst.i.tute for you while you have your tooth taken out and get a little rest?" Mona kindly inquired.

"No, miss; the girls are all busy--they have their own work to do, and I shall have to bear it as best I can."

"Then let me help you," Mona said, a sudden thought setting all her pulses bounding.

Perhaps she might come across that dress!

"You, miss!" the girl cried, in unfeigned astonishment. "A young lady like you help to make beds in a hotel where you are a guest!"

Mona laughed.

"I have often made beds, and--I am not regarded as a 'young lady' just now; I am only a kind of waiting-maid to the lady with whom I am traveling," she explained, thinking she might the more easily gain her point if the girl was led to think the difference in their positions was not as great as she had imagined. "Come now," she added, "I am going to help you, for I know you are not able to do all this work yourself,"

and she immediately began to a.s.sist in putting her own chamber to rights.

They went from room to room, Mona chatting pleasantly and trying to take the girl's mind from her pain; but she saw that it was almost more than she could do to keep about her work.

Finally she made her sit down and let her work alone.

"How many rooms are there yet to be cared for?" she asked, as she began to spread up the bed where they were.

"Only four more, miss--just what are left in this hall," said the girl, as her head fell wearily back against the high rocker which Mona had insisted upon her taking.

Mona went on with the work she had volunteered to perform, and when she returned to look at the girl again, she found that she was sleeping heavily.

"Exhausted nature has a.s.serted itself, and I will let her rest," the young girl murmured; "there can be no possible harm in my doing this work for her, although I suppose it would not be thought just the thing for a stranger to have access to all these rooms."

She put everything there as it should be, then she went out, softly closing the door after her, that no one might see the girl sleeping.

She proceeded to do the four remaining apartments without finding what she sought until she came to the very last one.

As she entered it she picked up a card that had been dropped upon the floor, and a joyful thrill ran through her as she read the name, "Mrs.

J.M. Walton."

She knew, then, that she had found the room occupied by the woman who had worn the gray dress.

Would she find the garment?

A trunk stood in one corner of the room, and her eyes rested covetously upon this. Then she went to the wardrobe and swung the door open.

Joy! the robe she sought was hanging on a peg within!

With trembling hands she sought for the rent which she had seen the day but one before.

She found it, and with fluctuating color and a rapidly beating heart, she took hold of the knot of the silk, which had been used to mend it, and deliberately pulled it out, when the ragged edges fell apart, revealing a triangular-shaped rent.

Mona drew her purse from her pocket, found the precious piece of cloth that Ray had sent to her, and laid it over the hole in the skirt.

It fitted perfectly into the tear, and she knew that the dress which the beautiful Mrs. Vanderbeck had worn, when she stole the Palmer diamonds, was found.

But the woman!

Mona was puzzled, for surely the woman whom she had seen wearing the dress was much older than the one whom Ray had described to her. She was wrinkled and gray; and then--the name! But stay! All at once light broke in upon her. Walton had been the name of the person who had so cleverly deceived Dr. Wesselhoff. She had been old and wrinkled, and now, without doubt, she had come to St. Louis to dispose of her share of the stolen diamonds, and had worn the other woman's dress, thinking, perhaps, it would be safe to do so, and would not be recognized under such different circ.u.mstances.