"Exactly what Colonel Blount said to me one time," said Eddring. "He was on a trembling bog, and he had to keep on running."
"Did Colonel Blount say that? Does he know everything?"
"As much as I know, or presently he will do so; I shall tell him all of this in due time."
"Where is the girl? Where is Lady now?"
"At the Big House, and safe."
"And where is Henry Decherd?"
"That I do not know. We'll hear from him some day, no doubt."
The woman looked about her, as though still in fear. "Tell me, Mr. Eddring," said she, "did you — did you ever — I mean, do you love that girl yourself?"
"Very much, Madam," said John Eddring, quietly,
"Are you going to marry her?"
"No."
"Then why did she give you her case?"
"I was chosen by her friend, Colonel Blount, as the lawyer best acquainted with these facts."
"Ah! sir," said Mrs. Ellison, turning again upon him the full glance of her dark eyes. "Why? Can you not see — do you not know? Why trouble with a half-baked chit like her? Drop it all, sir. You are lawyer enough to know that my case is as good as hers, if handled well. If I knew one man upon whom I could depend — ah! you do not know, you will not see!"
One hand, white, thick-palmed, shapely, approached his upon the table. He could feel its warmth before it touched his own. Then swiftly he caught the hand in a hard and stern grasp, looking straight into the eyes of its owner. "Madam," said he, "none of this! I have asked you to tell me the truth. I have told you the truth. The truth leaves us very far apart. You are safe; but you must understand." Her eyes sank, and on her cheek the dull flush reappeared.
"Now I want you to go on and answer a few more questions," said
Eddring, finally. "I suppose that while you were all there at the Big
House you were partners, after a fashion. How much did you know of
Delphine's stirring up the negroes in that neighborhood?"
"I did not know much of it. I only guessed. I put nothing beyond
Decherd."
"Did you know anything about the levee-cutting?"
"Nothing whatever. They didn't tell me anything of that. I presume it didn't suit Henry Decherd to tell me everything he was doing."
"I can imagine that," said Eddring. "There was a time for Decherd to lighten ship, and, as you say, he had only women to fear."
"I knew myself when the time came for me to leave him," said the woman, now apathetically. "I went over to St. Louis soon after Miss Lady first left the Big House, and after Decherd followed her. I knew that he was smitten with Miss Lady, and that there would be trouble, and that neither Delphine nor myself would be safe. I hid as best I could, and lived as best I could. Lately I have been frightened. I thought I would come to see you. I hoped you might help me. I don't know what I did think."
"You don't know where Decherd is at present?"
"No, I do not."
"Do you have any hope that he will ever care for you in any way?"
"Yes," said the woman, slowly and dully, "he cares for me. He'll care for me. He'll find me some day, now that you've taken Miss Lady from him."
"And you will go back to him?"
"Never! God forbid. Love him? No!"
"Yet you think he will look you up again. Why? To get help in this lawsuit?"
"You do not know him. He knows that all his hope in this lawsuit was gone long ago. He's not a fool. But he is going to hunt me up some day. He's going to find me; and then — he's going to kill me. He's killed Delphine, and he's going to kill me."
The two white hands, trembling now as though with a palsy, fell on the table in front of her. Her eyes, not seeing Eddring, gazed staring straight in front of her. The horror of her soul was written upon her face. Remorse, repentance, fear for the atonement — these had their way with her who was lately known as Alice Ellison, woman of fortune, and now served ill by fortune's hand.
All at once she broke from her half-stupor, her overstrung nerves giving way. A cry of terror burst from her lips. "You!" she cried, "you will not love me, you will not save me! Oh, Lady, girl — oh, is there no one, is there no one in all the world?"
John Eddring took her firmly by the shoulders, and after a time half- quieted her.
"Wine," she sobbed; "brandy — give me something."
Eddring threw open the door. "Jack," he cried; "Jack, come here. Run across the street for me. When you come back order a carriage. This lady is ill."
She sat for a time, trembling. Eddring, himself agitated, completed his hurried writing. She signed. He called a notary, and she made oath with a hand that shook as she uplifted it.
John Eddring, possessed at length of the last thread of his mystery, helped down the stairs the trembling and terror-stricken woman who had been the final agent of a justice long deferred. "Madam," he said, as he assisted her into the carriage, "I thank you for Miss Lady. If you ever have any need, address me; and meantime, keep careful watch. Take care of yourself, and be sure this knowledge will never be used against you. We shall not see you want."
She seemed not to hear him. Her eyes still stared straight in front of her. "He's coming," she whispered. "It will be the end!"
Chapter XX. THE LID OF THE GRAVE
In a little room of a poor hotel situated on a back street of the city of New Orleans, a man bent over an old trunk which had that day been unearthed from a long-time hiding-place. It had for years been left unopened. It was like opening a grave now to raise its cover. The man almost shuddered as he bent over and looked in, curious as though these things had never before met his gaze. There was a dull odor of dead flowers long boxed up. A faint rustling as of intangible things became half audible, as though spirits passed out at this contact with the outer air.
"Twelve years ago — and this is the sort of luggage I carried then," he mused. "What taste! What a foolish boy! Dear me. Well — what?" His bravado failed him. He started, fearing something. Yet presently he peered in.
It was like a grave, yet one where some beneficent or some cruel process of nature had resisted the way of death and change. "Foolish boy!" he muttered, as he peered in and saw Life as it had been for him when he had shut down the lid. "God! it's strange. There ought to be a picture or so near the top." He touched the tray, and the dead flowers and dry papers rustled again until he started back. His face, tired, dissipated, deeply lined, went all the paler, but presently he delved in again.
"Pictures of myself, eh? the first thing. I was always first thing to myself. Nice, clean boy, wasn't I? Wouldn't have known it was myself. Might have been a parson, almost. Here's another. Militia uniform, all that. Might have been a major, almost. Uh-hum! High school diploma here — very important. Eighteen — great God, was it so long ago as that? University diploma — Latin. Can't read it now. Might have been a professor, mightn't I? Diploma of law school; also Latin. Certificate of admission to the bar of — . Might have been a lawyer. Might have been a judge, mightn't I? Might have a home now; white, green blinds, brick walk up to the door, paling fence — that kind of thing. Might have had a home — wife and babies — eh! Baby? Children? What? Well, I couldn't call this much of a home, could I, now?"
He unfolded some old newspapers and periodicals of a departed period, bearing proof of certain of his own handicraft. "Might have been a writer — poet — that