Presumability

1907-1909, Henry James, Roderick Hudson/Preface The prime effect of so sustained a system, so prepared a surface, is to lead on and on; while the fascination of following resides, by the same token, in the presumability somewhere of a convenient, of a visibly-appointed stopping place.

It would seem to be the logic of the defense that, having done away with the presumability of marital aspirations on the part of the defendant toward the wife of deceased, he had thereby shown an absence of motive or ground of hostility […]