What proofs had she for him to examine? How could she establish the
absolute fact?

It was true that her uncle had authorized a will to be made leaving all
his property to his "beloved niece," but he had not been able to sign it,
and it of course amounted to nothing. Must even this relationship be
denied her in law? Oh, why had he not been more careful in regard to her
interests? It was very hard--it was very humiliating to have her identity
thus doubted.

"Mr. Horace Graves was my uncle's lawyer; he will tell you that I am his
niece," she faltered, with white lips.

"My dear young lady, I know Mr. Graves, and that he is a reliable man,"
Mr. Corbin observed; "but a hundred people might assert that you were Mr.
Dinsmore's niece, and it would not prove anything. Don't you know that to
satisfy the law upon any point there must be indisputable proof
forthcoming; there must be some written record--something tangible to
demonstrate it, or it amounts to nothing? You may be the niece of Mr.
Dinsmore; you may be the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Richmond Montague; this
may be the portrait of Miss Mona Forester; but the facts would have to be
established before your claim could be recognized and the property
bequeathed to Miss Forester made over to you."

"Oh," cried Mona, in deep distress, "what, then, shall I do? I do not
care so much about the property as I do about learning more about my
mother. I will tell you frankly," she went on, with burning cheeks and
quivering lips, "that I know there is some mystery connected with her
married life; my uncle told me something, but I have reason to believe
that he kept back much that I ought to know," and Mona proceeded to
relate all that Mr. Dinsmore had revealed to her on her eighteenth
birthday, while the lawyer listened with evident interest, his face
expressing great sympathy for his fair young visitor.

"I am very glad to have you confide in me so freely," he remarked, when
she concluded, "and I will deal with equal frankness with you so far as I
may. Our reason for advertising for information regarding Miss Mona
Forester was this: I received recently a communication from a lawyer in
London, desiring me to look up a person so named, and stating that a
certain Homer Forester--a wool merchant of Australia--had just died in
London while on his way home to America, and had left in his lawyer's
hands a will bequeathing all that he possessed to a niece, Miss Mona
Forester, or her heirs,