“No. Monsieur de Cadanet saw her at intervals, but it was not until his health failed that he liked to have her about him.”
“Did she undertake all the nursing?”
“When he was seriously ill there was a nurse as well.”
“And at the time when he made this—this extraordinary revelation, Madame Lemaire was not in the room?”
“Certainly not!” said Lemaire, hastily.
“You have told the judge that you thought it unnecessary to have his words taken down as a formal deposition; did it not occur to you it would have been very desirable to have called in witnesses to hear what now rests upon your own unsupported word?”
“Monsieur de Beaudrillart’s own letter gave the necessary evidence.”
“As to his borrowing the sum—”
The judge here interpolated, “It was stealing. It cannot be called borrowing.”
“Unauthorised borrowing, monsieur le president, I acknowledge. But if repaid, as we maintain, the jury will not consider it a theft. And the witness, who is the person most interested, can bring no evidence to prove that it was not repaid beyond his own report of what I will venture to call an imaginary conversation!”