"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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 canva.s.sed 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 cas.e.m.e.nt, 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 a.s.signed 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle, 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 the grandmother of Louise Loisson was the daughter of the Comte de Loisson; that she returned to Paris early in the nineteenth century; that in spite of her n.o.ble birth she figured for some years as a danseuse in leading Continental cities,--a dancer of strange dances. This Louise Loisson, as he discovered, had some years later, after declining all manner of t.i.tled suitors, married a distant cousin, by name Raoul de Loisson, of Favreuil-Chantry, France; a young n.o.bleman of democratic tendencies, who later removed to New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana. So much for the first Louise Loisson.

Records showed that to Raoul and Louise Loisson was born one daughter, Louise, who married one Robert Fanning, a planter and cattle dealer. But the confusion of records brought about by the Civil War left it impossible to tell what became of this Louise Loisson-Fanning, or of either of her parents. The trail ended abruptly; nor could Eddring find any means of pursuing it further, certain as he was that, in the person of Miss Lady, he had found the third Louise Loisson and the rightful heiress of the Loisson properties in the mountains below St. Louis. Again he looked at his uncompleted papers, and again he sighed.

It was well toward noon, and Eddring was busying himself about other matters, when he heard the knock of his faithful henchman, Jack, and bade him enter.

"Lady done sent me over f'om de hotel, sah," said Jack. "I brung her trunk up f'om de de-pot. Heah's her kyard. She's over to the hotel, an' wants you to come oveh dah."

Eddring started to his feet as he saw the name upon the card. "Tell the lady," said he, "to come here to my own office. Tell her to come at once, and say that I will wait for her." And thus, a half-hour later, there appeared at his door the figure of Alice Ellison, sometime adventurous, yet not always happy, woman of fortune.

Eddring gazed at her sharply. She seemed older. Traces of dissipation showed upon her face. Her eye, a trifle more furtive, glanced from side to side as though she felt herself pursued. Yet in spite of all, Alice Ellison, even at her years, was a woman not wholly without charm. She stood now, hesitating, her hand still upon the k.n.o.b of the door, her face not altogether confident as she gazed at the man before her.

"Come in, Madam, and be seated," said Eddring. "I am very glad to see you."

His tone rea.s.sured her, and she entered, half-extending to him her hand.

"I--I know you are a good lawyer, Mr. Eddring," said she, "and I-- well, I'm in trouble. I've a case, a very interesting one, which means a great deal of money to some one. I thought that perhaps you'd like to take my case. I have always had so much respect for you, Mr.

Eddring."

She turned upon him eyes which might have been compelling enough under certain circ.u.mstances, but whose glance was lost upon the man before her. Eddring stepped quietly to the door, closed it and sprung the lock. "Madam," said he, "are you alone in this case? Do you not really mean that you and Mr. Henry Decherd are partners in this enterprise?"

She started up. "Open the door!" she cried. "Let me out!"

"No," said Eddring; "you can not go. In one way it is effrontery for you to come here. But in another, it was the best thing you could do.

The case of yourself and this man Decherd might be taken without retainer by the prosecuting attorney of any of a half-dozen localities. You may know that I'm acquainted with many of the details of this case in the past; but still you have done well to come here."

"You'll not tell him--" she began.

"You mean Decherd?" She nodded, her hand at her throat. "I'm afraid of him," she said. "He'll kill me. He'll kill me some day, surely. I wanted you--I wanted you to take care of me. I--I've always thought so much of you, Mr. Eddring."

She reached out to him a pitiful hand, and on her face was the horrible mask of a woman endeavoring feminine arts while upon her soul there sat naught but horror and personal concern. Eddring looked at her in simple pity. "Be seated here, Madam," said he. "Be quiet, and make yourself at ease. The safest thing you can do is to tell me the whole truth. I want your story, and I must have it. That will be the safest thing for you."

"But I don't want--I don't want any one to hear us."

"No one need hear us. We shall not need even a notary or a clerk.

Talk to me freely, and afterward I will make a memorandum, which you can attest. In the case of a contested land t.i.tle, that can later be introduced under a bill for the perpetuation of the evidence. You must simply tell me the truth, now, and in your own way."

The face of Alice Ellison grew more haggard. Suddenly all the weakness of her s.e.x swept over her--all the weakness also of the wrong-doer. The comfort of the confessional seemed the sole happiness possible for her. And so it was that she gave to Eddring the first direct confirmation of that which he had by piece-work reasoning convinced himself to be the truth. He first rapidly ran over the salient features of the Loisson story, explaining to her fully his interest In the same, and pointing out to her the certainty of his success as well as the hopelessness of any contest on the part of herself or Decherd. Thereafter his questions induced the other to speak definitely.

"You were right about the book," said Alice Ellison. "It was found in the Congressional Library by that man, by Mr. Decherd. I took it from there myself, and I always kept it. The first Louise Loisson married her cousin, I think, in about 1841, and she and her husband came to New Orleans not long after that. Louise Loisson the second was born in 1848 at New Orleans, and she married, as you say, this Mr.

Fanning. She was not known as Louise Loisson. Raoul de Loisson turned a very ardent democrat. He was known in New Orleans, or at least publicly known, under the name of Ellison, which form of his name he thought was more American.

"Louise, his daughter, was also known under the name of Ellison. She was not married until 1874. Before her marriage she was an orphan, and you might have found, had you been lucky enough, proof of the fact that she was known on the stage of the old French Opera House, even after the close of the Civil War. Her mother died while Louise, the second Louise, was in her youth. Her father, then a major in a Louisiana regiment, was killed during the war, in the fighting near Atlanta.

"Louise Ellison was thus, like all the other unfortunate girls of that family, left alone early in life. The first Louise perhaps learned her strange dancing in a school of her own somewhere in the West. Louise Ellison the second also had her own methods. She danced in New Orleans for a time, but went from there to Paris. They all danced--they could not help it. It was heredity, I suppose. The second one danced, like her mother--and then married."

"I thought you said she was married in New Orleans."

"Not in New Orleans, but in Paris. You know, at one time, the rich planters of Louisiana spent half the year regularly in Paris. It was so with Robert Fanning. The story is that he met her first in Paris, dancing at one of the theaters, and creating a furore, as her mother had before her. He learned that she was American and from New Orleans, and year after year he urged her to marry him. She must have been late in her twenties before she finally did so, for that was in 1874. They probably lived in Paris for a time, for it was not until 1877 that they came back to Fanning's plantation, where her baby was born."

The hand of John Eddring, lying upon the table before him, twitched and trembled. "And that child," said he, "was Miss Lady Ellison? Tell me, tell me at once!"

"Yes," whispered Alice Ellison, her eyes turned aside from his gaze.

Eddring drew a long sigh of relief. "Thank G.o.d!" said he. "So that was our Miss Lady Ellison, and she was not your child. Now, tell me, as soon as you can, how did it all happen? Tell me, where did you meet Decherd? Who was he? Was he your husband? Tell me now, as fast as you can."

Mrs. Ellison paled before his vehemence, and her voice broke a bit tremulously. "Well, then, wait," said she. "I'm going to tell you.

You must know all this is hard--awfully hard. If I told you this you could put me in prison. You could do anything. Promise me that you will not take any action."

"I promise you," said Eddring, sharply. "Tell me the truth, and help me to put this girl where she belongs, and I'll see that you are not prosecuted. But now tell me about yourself and this man Decherd. Were you married? Where did you meet him?"

"I was born in the North," she went on, hesitating. "I won't tell you my name. My family was good enough. I may have been wild when I was a girl. I won't say as to that. I was a good deal older than Henry Decherd when I first met him at New York. He attended a law school there. He told me he came of good family, and he seemed able and well-bred enough. He was infatuated with me. We--well, we left New York together."

"Were you married?"