“The best. I loved Uncle Sampson and he loved me, I know. I am his only living relative, except some distant cousins. I am the daughter of his sister, of whom he was very fond.”
The girl was a bit of an enigma. She seemed straightforward and sincere, yet I was somehow conscious of a reservation in her talk, a glibness of speech that carried the idea of a prearranged story.
Why I should mistrust her I couldn’t say, at first. Then I remembered that I had seen her canoeing over to Pleasure Dome in the night, and now she was saying she had not done so.
“Are you his heiress?” The question came sharply.
“So far as I know,” she replied with perfect equanimity. “My uncle has told me that his will leaves the bulk of his estate to me, but he also told me that when he married Mrs. Dallas, he would revise that will, and make different arrangements.”
“Did you resent this?”
“Not at all. I knew my uncle would leave me a proper portion of his wealth, and that as long as he lived he would take care of his sister’s child.”
“You are an only child of your parents?”
“I had a twin sister. She died fourteen years ago.”
“And she is buried on this estate?”