"I know," she said distinctly, "I am no longer a free white woman; I am a negro, and a slave."
"Oh, so you know that, do you? Then you must also be aware that you are my property. Perhaps it will be well for you to remember this in answering my questions. Now tell me who informed you of all this?"
"I cannot answer."
"Cannot! You mean you will not. Well, young woman, I'll find means to make you, for I have handled your kind before. Drop this dignity business, and remember you are a slave, talking to your master. It will be better for you, if you do. Where is Eloise Beaucaire?"
"Why do you seek to find her? There is no slave blood in her veins."
"To serve the necessary papers, of course."
He spoke incautiously, urged on by his temper, and I marked how quickly her face brightened at this intelligence.
"To serve papers! They must be served then before—before you can take possession? That is what I understood the sheriff to say."
"Why, of course—the law requires that form."
"Then I am not really your slave—yet?" her voice deepening with earnestness and understanding. "Oh, so that is how it is—even if I am a negro, I do not belong to you until those papers have been served. If you touch me now you break the law. I may not be free, but I am free from you. Good God! but I am glad to know that!"