"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 father!" "Well, the woman asserts that the infant lived for a few hours, and brings the records to prove it, and claims that _she_ is Mr. Dinsmore's only legitimate heir, through her child," Mr. Graves explained. "And is she?--is that true?" Mona asked. "Yes, the court will recognize her claim--to all appearance, it is indisputable; and now I can understand what puzzled and troubled me when Mr. Dinsmore was so helplessly ill," Mr. Graves said, reflectively. "You doubtless remember how distressed he was when he tried to make me understand something in connection with his will." "Yes," said Mona with streaming eyes. "Oh, poor Uncle Walter!"