"Do you mean that I am to have no fortune—that I am to be poor?" exclaimed Mona, astonished.
"Ah, I fear that it is so."
"How can that be possible? Uncle Walter was very rich, wasn't he? I certainly understood you to say so."
"Yes, I did; and I find, on looking into his affairs, that he was worth even more than I had previously supposed."
"Well, then, what can you mean? I am his only near relative, and you said that I should inherit everything," Mona said with a perplexed look.
"I know I did, and I thought so at that time; but, Mona, I was waited upon by a noted lawyer 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?"