Everet looked up quickly into his mother’s face. “Before your twenty-fifth birthday?”
“Yes.”
“And were you sorry that you did not wait a little longer? You would have been free from the conditions of that will, and could have kept your money.”
“No, Everet, I have never regretted my marriage,” Mrs. Mapleson calmly replied. “I think I have been far happier than I should have been had I remained single.”
“What became of Robert Dale’s money?”
“That has been a mystery to everybody, and one that has remained unsolved to this day. He was known to have given twenty thousand dollars to a blind asylum in Philadelphia several years previous to his death; but what became of the remainder of his fortune, which must have been very large, has been a question that has puzzled all who knew him. I think, however, he must have given away large sums at different times, and it was all distributed before he died, for no papers of any kind and no will were ever found.”
“Was Miss Annie Dale a relative of this eccentric old bachelor?” Everet inquired.
“Yes; she was his niece, his own brother’s child; but he never had anything to do with the family. There was some trouble between himself and his brother during their youth, and he never forgot or forgave the grudge. Even after the girl’s father died, he refused to have anything to do with either mother or daughter, although I have heard that they were at times very needy.”
“Did you ever see the girl?”
“No; my home, as you know, was in Richmond. I was not married, and did not go to Vue de l’Eau until some three years or more after she disappeared.”