Chapter XXXVI
There was still cross-examination.
Mr. Fenton, too, began with unimportant questions. He gave Miss Cornelia, who looked ready to faint, time to recover herself a little. The questions he asked were easy to answer. Had her niece, in the course of her education, given them much trouble, had she ever deceived them, kept anything from them before this fatal secret? Ah, no, no! Miss Cornelia gave her answers tremulously, yet with a fervent relief, an eager desire to make herself heard throughout the court-room.
"Then with your knowledge of your niece's character," Mr. Fenton asked, speaking almost carelessly, "you didn't think of her as the sort of person likely to commit a crime?"
Miss Cornelia drew herself up with sudden dignity and her voice was plainly audible, and without a tremor. "Most certainly not," she said.
"Then how," inquired Mr. Fenton calmly, "did you account for her extraordinary assertion that she had committed this murder?"
Miss Cornelia hardly hesitated. "I thought she was out of her mind," she said. "I couldn't account for it in any other way."
"It never occurred to you for a moment that it was true?"
"Not for a moment." The words came out indignantly.