“By a disinterested and credible witness.”
“By a sly, spying French servant!”
“It matters not by whom; you are asked to explain the act of burning that paper.”
“I have nothing to explain. I deny it.”
And try as he would Mr. Benson could not prevail upon Miss Morton to admit that she had burned a paper.
He confronted her with the witness, Marie, but Miss Morton coldly refused to listen to her, or to pay any attention to what she said. She insisted that Marie was not speaking the truth, and as the matter rested between the two, there was nothing more to be done.
Kitty French said that she saw Miss Morton go into Madeleine’s room, and afterward go upstairs to her own room, but she knew nothing about the papers in question.
Still adhering to her denial of Marie’s story, Miss Morton was excused from the witness stand.
Another witness called was Dorothy Burt. Fessenden was sorry that this had to be, for he dreaded to have the fact of Carleton’s infatuation for this girl brought into public notice.
Miss Burt was a model witness, as to her manner and demeanor. She answered promptly and clearly all the coroner’s questions, and at first Rob thought that perhaps she was, after all, the innocent child that Carleton thought her.