“Was Mrs. Della White—legally married to Herbert Krutzmacht in the American consulate at Guatemala City. He met mama down there, and married her, when I was a child, and adopted me, too. I’ve got everything necessary to prove what I say. So you just telegraph that judge to hold his horses and get ready to write another decree!”
“And they hadn’t been divorced?” Brainard pursued, bewildered.
“Not that! He was bad enough, gave mother a dreadful life, took her up to that desolate mining town in Arizona, and left her there. Poor ma! But he sent her money when he had any—even that last time when he was in New York—and always called her his wife. I have letters to show it.”
“But you weren’t his child!” Brainard mused.
“Only by adoption; but I am my mother’s only living relative, and she died after him!”
“So, as the old man seems to have had no other living heirs to make claim, it is all your money!”
Melody shook her head smilingly.
“Not quite that! A good part of it must belong to my able trustee, who discovered the sulfur and made it pay. Dad Krutzmacht couldn’t have had very much to the good when he died. He wasn’t a nice sort of man, Dad Krutzmacht,” she added thoughtfully.
“Well, he left you a nice little fortune—something that should run into the millions. You will have to think more tenderly of the old fellow.”
“Ugh! How I hated him and Monument! That’s why I dropped his name. And just as soon as mother was gone, I fled.”