"What do you mean, sir?" inquired Mr. Cutler, amazed, but flushing angrily at being addressed so uncivilly.
"These are not the stones you brought to me yesterday," said Mr. Arnold, who was also very angry.
"Sir!" exclaimed Justin Cutler, aghast, but with haughty mien.
"They are nothing but paste," continued the jeweler, eyeing the beautiful crescents with disdain; "and," he added, menacingly, "I've a mind to have you arrested on the spot for attempting to obtain money under false pretenses."
Mr. Cutler grew pale at this with mingled anger and a sudden fear.
He reached across the counter and took the case from Mr. Arnold's hand.
He turned the stones to the light.
At the first glance they seemed to be all right—he could detect nothing wrong; for aught that he could see the crescents were the same which he had submitted to the merchant the day before. But as he studied them more closely the gleam of the gems was entirely different—the fire of the genuine diamond was lacking.
"Can it be possible that I have been duped, swindled?" he exclaimed, with white lips and a sinking heart.
"I should say, rather, that you were attempting to dupe and swindle some one else," sarcastically retorted the diamond dealer. "The stones are a remarkably fine imitation, I am free to confess, and would easily deceive a casual observer; but if you have ever tried and succeeded in this clever game before, you are certainly caught this time."
"Mr. Arnold, I assure you that I am blameless in this matter—that I honestly believed the jewels to be the same that I brought to you yesterday," the young man said, with an earnest directness which convinced the gentleman that he spoke the truth. "I see now," he continued, "that they are not; and"—a feeling of faintness almost overpowering him as he realized all that this experience would cost him, aside from his pecuniary loss—"I have been outrageously deceived and hoodwinked, for I have already advanced the sum you named to the woman who wished to dispose of the diamonds."
Mr. Arnold searched the manly face before him, and was forced to believe in the truth of his statements.
"If that is so, then you have indeed been wretchedly swindled," he said; "for these crescents are but duplicates in paste of those I examined yesterday. How did you happen to be so taken in?"
Mr. Cutler briefly related the circumstances, and when he concluded, Mr.
Arnold remarked:
"The woman was an accomplished cheat, and led you on very adroitly. Your mistake was in advancing the money for the stones; if you had brought these things to me first, you would have saved yourself this loss. But of course she never would have allowed that; her game was to get the money from you, and she worked you finely for it."
Mr. Cutler groaned in spirit as he realized it all, and how he had tied his own hands by what he had written on the card that he had given to the wily woman.
He kept this portion of the transaction to himself, however; he could not confess how foolishly weak he had been. Surely his infatuation for the beautiful widow had led him beyond all bounds of common sense and good judgment; but he had no one but himself to blame, and he must bear his loss as best he could. His lost faith in womanhood was the heaviest part of it.
"I sincerely regret having put you to so much trouble, Mr. Arnold," he courteously remarked, as he closed the jewel-case and put it out of sight, "and as a favor, I would ask that you regard this matter as strictly confidential. I have been miserably fooled, and met with a heavy loss, but I do not wish all Chicago to ring with the story."
"You may trust me, and accept my assurance that I am sincerely sorry for you," the jeweler returned, in a tone of sympathy, and now entirely convinced of the honesty of the young man. "And let me tell you," he added, "for your personal benefit, while examining those crescents yesterday, I put a private mark on the back of the settings with a steel-pointed instrument; it was like this"—making a cipher on a card and passing it to him. "If you should ever be fortunate enough to come across them again, you could identify them by it."
"Thank you," Mr. Cutler returned, as he put it carefully away.
Then he wished the gentleman a polite good-day, and went out of the store, a wiser, but a somewhat poorer, man than he had been the previous day.
He was almost crushed by the wrong which had been perpetrated against him. He had been thoroughly and artfully deceived. Mrs. Bently—if indeed that was her real name, which he doubted—had seemed such a modest and unassuming woman, so frank, and sweet, and ingenuous, that he would have indignantly resented it had any one hinted to him that she was not all that she appeared to be.
He had never met any woman who possessed such power to charm him, and yet she had never seemed to seek his notice—had never appeared to thrust herself upon him in any way. He had instead sought her and been especially attracted to her by the very simplicity and naturalness of her deportment; and this rude awakening to the fact of her duplicity was therefore far more bitter than the loss of his money, although that was considerable.
He was greatly depressed, but, on leaving Mr. Arnold's store, he proceeded directly to the street and number which she had given as her future place of residence. It proved to be an empty house with the sign "To Rent" staring at him from several windows.
He next sought for the lawyer who, Mrs. Bently had told him, had conducted her business affairs. There was no such person to be found.
Then, his indignation getting the better of his grief and disappointment, he sought a detective, told his story, and gave the case into his hands.
"Keep the matter quiet, Rider," he said, "but spare no expense to find the woman. If she is a professional thief, she will try the same trick on some one else; and though we may not be able to bring her to justice in this case, since I so rashly tied my hands by giving her that writing, yet I should like to give my evidence against her for the benefit of some other unfortunate victim."
Thus the matter rested for the time, and Justin Cutler once more threw himself heart and soul into business, vowing that he would never trust a woman again.
"But I'll keep the bogus crescents, to remind me of my folly, for of course I shall never see the real ones again."
Did he?
CHAPTER III.
MONA.
"Mona, come here, dear, please."
A gentleman, of perhaps forty-five, looked up from the desk where he had been writing, as he uttered this request; but his voice trembled slightly, and was replete with tenderness, as he spoke the name which heads this chapter.
The girl whom he addressed was sitting by a window on the opposite side of the room, and she lifted her bright brown head and turned a pair of dark, liquid eyes upon the speaker.
"Yes, Uncle Walter," she cheerfully responded, as, laying down her book, she arose and moved gracefully across the room toward the handsome, aristocratic-looking man at the desk, who watched her every motion with a fond intentness that betrayed a deep and absorbing affection for her.
He frowned slightly, however, as she spoke, and a half-bitter, half-scornful smile curled his finely chiseled lips for an instant.
The young girl was tall and exquisitely formed, but her face was one not easily described. Her features were delicate and clearly defined, yet with a certain roundness about them such as one sees in a faultlessly sculptured statue, while unusual strength of character was written indelibly upon them. Her hair was slightly curly, and arranged with a careful carelessness that was very becoming, while here and there a stray ringlet, that had escaped the silver pin that