"I saw in a paper, two days later, he had been detained in a town in Ohio as being mentally unbalanced. In the meantime I had written to my Uncle John, while we were waiting at the station, telling him briefly I was married and to whom. The note was posted not five minutes before a postman came along and took up the letters in the box. I couldn't have stopped it had I wished to, and it never occurred to my mind to stop it, anyway."
"What did your uncle reply?"
"He wrote at once that he was thoroughly pleased. He had long hoped I might marry someone other than Theodore. He confessed that his will contained a clause to the effect that I should inherit no more than five thousand dollars, should I not have been married at least one month prior to his death, to a healthy, respectable man who was not my cousin.
"I dared not write that I had been deserted, or that Mr. Fairfax might be insane. I couldn't tell what to do. I hardly knew what to expect, or what I was, or anything. I could only pretend I was off on my honeymoon—and wait. Then came uncle's sudden death, and my lawyer sent me word about the will, asking when he should file it for probate. Then—then I knew I had to have a sane husband."
"And the will is not yet filed?"
"Not yet. And fortunately Mr. Trowbridge has had to be away."
Garrison pursued the topic of the will for purposes made necessary by his recent discoveries concerning a new one.
"Mr. Trowbridge had your uncle's testament in his keeping?"
Dorothy shook her head. "No. I believe he conferred with uncle's lawyer, just after his death, and read it there."
"Where did your uncle's lawyer live?"