'Yes,' I replied, stupidly gazing at her.
'What makes you look at me like that, Mary?'
'How do I look?' I replied, with an attempt at a smile.
But her fears were aroused. 'Is it anything about this?' she anxiously asked, looking down at the paper in her hand, and then into my face.
'I—I have been thinking the matter over, Lilian, and—I should like to ask some one's advice.'
'Some one's advice?—About this, dear?' turning it over in her hand, and then giving a wondering look at me.
'I mean as to its genuineness, Lilian.'
'I do not understand. These names are plain enough, and you thought just now'——
'Oh, any one might have written these names without the document being a binding one,' I said, catching at any hope. 'To be legal, it must have been signed in Scotland, you know; and there is no proof that it was.'
'But you hope—Mary, do not you hope that it is genuine?'