"
Mona flushed hotly at this remark. It seemed almost like a stain upon her
uncle's fair name to have his domestic affairs spoken of in this way, and
she had been very sore over the revelation that he had had a discarded
wife living.
"Yes, sir," she briefly responded, but with an air of dignity that caused
a gleam of amusement to leap to the lawyer's eyes.
"Well--it is very queer," he remarked, musingly, while his eyes traveled
back and forth between the picture he held in his hands and the face of
the beautiful girl before him.
Mona looked a trifle surprised--she could not understand what was "queer"
in the fact that she was Walter Dinsmore's niece.
"I suppose," resumed Mr. Corbin, after another season of reflection,
during which he looked both grave and perplexed, "that you have the
_proofs_ of all that you claim? You can prove that you are the daughter
of Mona Forester and--Richmond Montague?"
Again Mona blushed, and hot tears of grief and shame rushed to her eyes,
as, all at once, it flashed into her mind that her errand there would be
a fruitless one, for she was utterly powerless to prove anything, while
the peculiar emphasis which Mr. Corbin had almost unconsciously used in
speaking of her father made her very uncomfortable.
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