“And can imagine no place in it where he might have thrust this document on taking it out of the envelope?”
“None.”
“Miss Bartholomew, you have heard the last witness state that your father distinctly told him on the night before his death that he had decided to make him his chief inheritor. Did your father ever make the same declaration to you?”
“He has said that he found my foreign cousin admirable.”
“That hardly answers my question, Miss Bartholomew.”
The pink came out on her cheeks. Ah; how lovely she was! But in what trouble also.
“He once asked me if I could rely on his judgment in the choice of my future husband?” came reluctantly from her lips. “Up till then I had not been aware that there was to be any choice.”
“You mean—”
“That I had never been given reason to think that there was any man living whom he could prefer for a real son to the nephew who lived like a son in the family.”
“Can you remember just when this occurred? Was it before or after the ball held in your house?”