"Yes," whispered Alice Ellison, her eyes turned aside from his gaze. Eddring drew a long sigh of relief. "Thank God!" 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?"
"You need not know. At least we were engaged then to be married, and God knows our lives were tangled closely enough from that time on. We were not very old, either of us. I presume we cared for each other— you know how that is. The trouble with him was he was following off after all the women in the world. Some think that is strength. Any woman who knows how to love knows it is weakness, and not strength. At any rate, it was that which made our first trouble. Meantime, he was not regularly taking up the practice of the law. I found him practically disowned by his family, who were Shreveport people originally. In one way or another he found a bit to do. He knew Robert Fanning and his wife through the fact that he had done legal work of some sort for Fanning. He knew also an old lawyer, or sort of notary, who used to do business for Eaoul de Loisson, or Ralph Ellison, as he called himself, years before. I can't tell you the name of that old lawyer, but Decherd could if he wanted to. He was somewhere down on Baronne Street in those days.
"At that time Mr. Decherd used to talk to me more freely. He told me that the old lawyer had told him that the Loissons were legal heirs to considerable lands somewhere up the river, not far from St. Louis. He said that Raoul de Loisson always laughed at that when he brought it up, and declared that any good American ought to be able to make his own living by himself, without counting upon his wife's fortune. Robert Fanning felt the same way. He thought he could make a living for his wife, without looking up the old estate, which at that time was not known to be of any great value."
"But go on, tell me about Fanning," broke in Eddring, impatiently.
"I am going to, as well as I can. You must remember that Mr. Decherd was then still a very young man indeed. I myself was older, as I said. This old notary, or lawyer, or whatever he was, had never seen me, and I do not know whether he was well acquainted or not with the Louise Ellison who was Fanning's wife. I only know that we went out to Fanning's plantation sometime about the year 1877. Mr. Fanning was away in Texas, and there came news of his death somewhere down in the Rio Grande country, where he had gone to purchase cattle. I don't think his wife ever knew of his fate. Henry Decherd and I were there together at the plantation.
"If I told you the truth now you would not believe it. But what I am telling you is the truth, and I will swear to it. Louise Fanning died two days after her baby was born. I lay there in their house at that time, and they told me that my baby had died. There was no one then acting as the head of the house. The servants were all distracted. One day some one came and put this live baby, the daughter of Louise Fanning, in my arms. Oh! you don't know, but I longed so for my baby! My arms fairly ached. So then I took this one and loved it. Sir, I was a mother to her, a sort of mother—as good, I suppose, as I could have been at all—for a long time."