"Now listen. I'm going to tell you what we know about you, or think we know.
"We think your real name is Louise Loisson, just the name you picked out for yourself. We think that was the name of your mother, and of your grandmother, too, for that matter. If all that is so, then you're rich, if you can prove your title; and we think you can. Tell me, what do you know about Mrs. Ellison? And what do you know about Henry Decherd? Were they ever married?"
A deep flush of shame sprang to Miss Lady's face as she turned about at this. "Colonel Cal," she began, and her voice trembled; "you hurt. All this hurts me so."
"Now hold on, child," said Blount, quickly. "None of that, either. This is strictly business. I know you are not the child of Mrs. Ellison. You are somebody else's daughter. You were in her company or her possession for a long time; just why, we can't prove yet a while. But there was something right mysterious between that fellow Decherd and Mrs. Ellison. Did you ever see them much together, as long as you were living with Mrs. Ellison?"
"No," said Miss Lady, "never, except as they met occasionally here or there. Mrs. Ellison traveled a great deal from time to time, when I was little, before we went to New Orleans, where I went to school with the Sisters. She, my mother — that is, Mrs. Ellison — had money from somewhere, not always very much. Mr. Decherd told me often that he simply was an old friend of hers. I always thought he was a lawyer somewhere in this state. Sometimes he went to St. Louis. We went to New Orleans; and that was the last I saw of him for some years until we came here to the Big House."
"That's all you know?" asked Blount. "You don't remember any mother of your own?"
"Not in the least." Tears welled from her eyes, and this time Blount did not protest.
"Miss Lady," said he, "there are some things we can't clear up yet. We can't prove just yet who was your own mother, but I want to tell you, you were born as far above that sort of life as that there sun is above the earth. No matter how much Decherd loved you, or how much right he had to love you, he couldn't do you anything but wrong and harm, and injury, and shame. As near as we can find out, he was about as bad, and about as sharp a man as ever struck this country. We couldn't hardly believe at first how smooth he was. Miss Lady, we can't tell just what his relations to Mrs. Ellison were. We know they had some kind of an understanding. We know that he was mixed up with Delphine down here on some sort of a basis. We know that he was robbing the railroad here with a list of judgment claims against the road, which he stole in some way. We know he was underneath a heap of this trouble with the niggers down here, and that he used Delphine as a cat's-paw in that. It was his scheme to have other people stir up all the trouble they could, so he could carry on his own devilment behind the smoke. Now we know he was mixed up with those two women somehow. I won't ask you any questions, and won't try to understand why you could have been so blind as not to know your own friends. — No, Miss Lady, come back here, and sit right down. You've got to take your own medicine, and some day you've got to know your own friends. Now sit down, and hold on till I tell you what I know about this."
And so, to a Miss Lady alternately shocked and ashamed, he went on to tell in his own fashion, and to the best of his knowledge, the facts of the strange story which had been canvassed between himself and Eddring long before. The sun was still farther up in the heavens when he had concluded, and when finally he rose to his feet and stood erect before her.
"So there you are, Miss Lady," said he. "You couldn't be any better than we knew you were all along. I don't think any more of you now than I ever did; and I don't believe Jack Eddring does either. Now, we don't know where this man Decherd will turn up again. You've got to stay here until we find out about that. But this thing can't run along this way, and it's got to be settled on a business basis. We've got to find Mrs. Ellison and make her tell what she knows. As to Decherd, his own rope'll hang him before long. Now, I'm going to be your agent, your attorney-in-fact. That's what we'd call a 'next friend' in law, maybe, though you don't need any guardian now. If you've got any better friend, you name him, but I know you haven't. Then we'll start suit to get possession of that property, which is yours. Jack Eddring will be your attorney. I'll appoint him myself, right now. He's just a little too good for you, Miss Lady, for you didn't think he was honest; but he'll handle this case. The only promise I want of you is this: if you get plumb rich and independent, and able to go where you like, and marry anybody you want to, you won't get up and go right away at once and leave us all. You won't do that right away, now will you, Miss Lady?"
Tears still stood in Miss Lady's eyes, as she put both her hands in the big one extended to her. "Colonel Cal," said she, "it's a wonder that I can know my friends, or tell the truth, or do anything that's right. It's been deceit, and treachery, and wrong about me all the time. I have hardly heard a true word, it seems to me, except when I was with the Sisters. But I think that she, Mrs. Ellison, told me one true thing, although she didn't mean it that way. She said, 'There's nothing in the world for a woman except the men.' That's the truth. It's been the truth for me. They're not all bad; I know now I've met two good ones, at least."
"You said two?" asked Blount.
Miss Lady hesitated. "Yes — two," she said, "I'm so sorry."
Blount caught the penitence of her tone and the meaning of her unfinished speech, and was content to leave his friend's case as it was. "Miss Lady," said he, sternly, "what do you mean idling around here all the morning? Can't you hear my dogs hollering? Them puppies will just naturally starve to death, and here you are a-visiting around in the shade, not tending to business."
It was a sober and thoughtful young woman who looked up at him. "All my life, Colonel Cal," said she, "there has been a sort of cloud before my eyes. I could not see clearly. Tell me, do you think I'll ever understand, and see everything clearly, and be my real self?"
"Yes, girl," said Calvin Blount, "you'll see it all clear, some day; and I hope it won't be long. Now, I said, go feed them puppies. And look at old Hec, there, wanting to talk to you."
Chapter XIX. THREE LADIES LOUISE
In the city, as well as in the country, spring came with a sensible charm. John Eddring, as he gazed out of his office one morning at the slow life of the southern city and felt the breath of the warm wind at the casement, abandoned himself for the time to the relaxation of the season. Peace and content seemed to abide here also, and Eddring, looking out of his window, sighed not altogether in sadness that his world was proving so endurable; that it might even, in time, prove comforting. With a man's exultation, he found happiness in the certainty that he could do his work, and that there was work for him to do — work perhaps in some sort higher than that which he had recently assigned to himself. Before him on his desk there lay a communication which meant his nomination as candidate at the next election for the state Legislature. It was pointed out to him that in all likelihood greater honors might await him at the hands of his district, as of the county. He found in this not so much personal pride as a sense of responsibility. Yet there remained comfort in the fact that he was growing, that he was in some measure attaining. As with any man truly great, this left him no more selfish, no more egotistic, than is the stringed instrument which, under the miracle of a higher power, finds itself capable of music.
Upon Eddring's desk at that moment there lay close beside the opened letter certain papers, none other than the brief in the case of Louise Loisson against Henry Decherd, in ejectment, defendant charged with holding certain properties without legal title thereto. For years now Eddring had followed the curious and intricate question of the Loisson estate, and little by little he had seen the tangled skein unravel beneath his hand. There were necessary links of the evidence yet to be supplied.
As against all adverse title, there needed to be urged for his client descent for three generations, carried in each generation by a single child, who in each case bore the name of Louise Loisson — certainly a strange and singular legal contingency. There needed to be three ladies Louise; and of these he had found but two. There was no great difficulty in establishing the fact that