Eddring sat looking at her, his fingers pressed closely to his lips. "What you tell me, Madam, is very, very strange," said he. "It might perhaps have been true."
"Believe it or not," said Alice Ellison, "it is the truth, as I have told you. There was no head to that household. There was no place to leave that little child. I took it for my own. I did not at that time intend any wrong. I don't know whether Decherd did at that time or not. It was there at the Fannings' that we met the girl Delphine, who had come in there from somewhere in the Indian Nations. She was then in her early teens, and was good-looking. I don't want to talk much about it, but it was then, I think, that Henry Decherd got—got interested in her. What he told her I don't know. He found out in some way that her name was Loise. In some way then and later he got to looking up the name of Loise in St. Louis, where the girl said her people originally lived. He assumed the management of her case, along with some other lawyers to whom he carried it."
"But did he think she was the heiress of the Loisson estates?"
"You, as a lawyer, can tell that better than I can. In some ways he had a good mind. He never told me much after that, except that he said if this case was ever decided he could not lose, no matter which way it went. We waited, years and years, for the case to get through the Supreme Court."
"How did you live in the meantime, and where did you go?"
"Don't ask me that. We lived the best way we could. Decherd got money now and again, and for reasons of his own he sent some money, once in a while, to keep me and the child, although he practically abandoned me, and, as I think, associated the more with this girl Delphine. He claimed to me all the time that it was necessary for him to live in this part of the country, in order to handle the lawsuit for her. She moved up here from New Orleans, I suppose to some town not far from Colonel Blount's plantation. I think he got us in there at Blount's place because he thought it would be less expense to him. In the meantime, I had educated the girl the best I could. Sir, I loved her in a way, until I thought other men were noticing her; and then I could not stand it."
"But you have not told me all of your story up to that time," said Eddring. "It is not easy for one absolutely to steal a child, and never be detected and punished for it. Moreover, you have not explained to me how you came by the name under which you were known to all of us. You say you were not Mrs. Decherd. Then who were you?"
The woman's lip half-curled in scorn. "Henry Decherd would have guessed that long ago," said she. "Who was to detect us? What was there to hinder? The Fanning family was wiped out. After the war he had no relatives remaining. I have just told you his wife was unknown in this country. This was her first visit after her marriage in Paris. When Henry Decherd and I took the baby back to New Orleans, what was there to hinder my being Louise Ellison-Fanning, the widow of Robert Fanning? Decherd was my attorney. The old notary helped these supposed descendants of his friend. It was he who helped us find the lead lands in St. Francois County. The old notary was as much a lover of the old nobility as Raoul de Loisson was a flouter of it."
"Ah, I begin to see," said Eddring. "I can see it unwinding now!"
"Yes, it was not difficult, but on the contrary, very simple. A criminal, if you please, may be bold, and boldness means success. Now, it was this old notary who, through friends of his in the Louisiana Legislature, had the Ellison name changed back legally to Loisson, as the records of that state show to-day, although you have not discovered those facts. As for me, it made little difference. The name of Ellison was established in the state of Louisiana. I simply took it, and wore it because I had no better. I did as many another woman has done; got on as best I could. But I tell you, I loved the girl for a long time. She was sweet and good. I felt she was my own, until the time when she began to dance; and then I knew perfectly well that sometime the truth would come out. I could feel it. Blood and breeding—I tell you, you can't escape that. It's all bound to come out. I might have known—I did know. I dreaded it, all along. I always knew the truth would come out some day."