only a few days ago, and he claims the whole of
your uncle's great wealth for another."

"Why, who can it possibly be?" cried the girl in amazement.

"Your uncle's wife, or, I should say, his widow."

"My uncle's wife?" repeated Mona, with a dazed look "Uncle Walter had no
wife!"

"Are you sure?"

"Why, yes, of course. I have always lived with him, ever since I can
remember, and there has been no one else in the family except the
servants and the housekeeper. I am sure--I think--and yet--"

Mona abruptly paused as she remembered a remark which her uncle had made
to her on her eighteenth birthday. He had said: "You have taken the place
of the little girl who never lived to call me father, and--you have
helped me to bear other troubles also."

Could it be possible, she now asked herself, that her uncle had had
domestic troubles, that there had been a separation from his wife, and
that this had been a life-long sorrow to him?

She had always supposed that his wife was dead, for he would never
speak of her, nor allow Mona to ask him any questions. From her earliest
childhood she had somehow seemed to know that she must not refer in any
way to such a subject.

"Ah, I see that you are in some doubt about it," Mr. Graves observed.
"The matter stands thus, however: A woman, claiming to be Mrs. Walter
Dinsmore, has presented her claim to her husband's property. She proves
herself, beyond the possibility of doubt, to be what she pretends,
bringing her marriage certificate and other papers to substantiate her
title. She asserts that about a year after her marriage with Mr. Dinsmore
they had trouble--of what nature I do not know--and the feeling between
them was so irreconcilable they agreed to part, Mr. Dinsmore allowing
her a separate maintenance. They were living in San Francisco at the
time. There was no divorce, but they never met afterward, Mr. Dinsmore
coming East, while she remained in California. She says there was a
child--"

"Yes," Mona interposed. "Uncle Walter told me of the birth of a little
girl, but that she never lived to call him father."

"I wonder what he meant by that?" said Mr. Graves with a start; "that the
child came into the world lifeless? If such was the case, then your claim
to the estate is still good."

"I supposed from what he said that it was born lifeless; still his words
were somewhat ambiguous--even if she had lived several months, she might
not have lived long enough to call him fa