"I would like to know what you mean by meddling in my affairs," began Decherd. "You are interfering--" "Yes," said a voice, soft but very cold, "I'm interfering. I am going to spoil your chances, Decherd. Sit down." The man thus accosted involuntarily sank back into a seat. Then a sudden rage caught him, and he half-started up again. This time he saw something blue gleaming dully in the idle hand which hung between Eddring's knees. "Be careful," said the latter. "I told you not to do that. Sit down, now, and listen." An unreasoning, blind terror seized Henry Decherd, and in spite of himself, he obeyed. "In the first place, Decherd," said Eddring, "I want to say that it was not lucky for you when I got hold of your valise by mistake at the Big House wreck--the time I found that list of claims, and the little old book in French. I have studied all those things over carefully, together with other things. I've been thinking a great deal. That's why I am going to spoil your chances." "Does she know?" whispered Decherd, hoarsely. "No, she knows nothing about it at all. She doesn't know who she is-- not even why she happened to take the name of Louise Loisson." Decherd gasped, but the cold voice went on. "You might have told her some of these things. You might have told her who her real mother was, and who her false mother. You might have given her a chance to know herself. I don't fancy that you did. I don't think you told her anything which did not serve your own purposes." "We were going to be married," began Decherd. "We are going to be married--" "You _were,_ perhaps," said Eddring, "but not now. Oh, I don't doubt that you are willing enough to marry Louise Loisson, and to deceive her after your marriage as you did before. I don't doubt that in the least." "What business is it of yours?" said Decherd, now becoming more sullen than blustering. "I can't say that it was my business at all," said Eddring. "It's accident, largely; and surely it was not your fault that I blundered on these matters. It was rather fate, or the occasional good fortune of the innocent. You covered up your trail fairly well; but a criminal will always leave behind him some egotistical mark of his crime, either by accident or by intent. You left marks all along your trail, Decherd--there, there, keep quiet. I don't want to use force with you. I'm not going to be the agent of justice. But it won't be altogether healthy for the man on whose shoulders a great many of these things are finally loaded. You were enterprising, Decherd, and you were an abler man than I thought, far abler; but you undertook too much.