"It leaves, also, two ways of getting the estate. You could marry the girl, or kill her. You might possibly get a tax-title in the latter case; if you killed the girl the tax-title would mature in your name. You may count that string as broken. Mrs. Ellison, we will say, wanted your paramour, Delphine, canceled, and wanted also to put the remaining claimant out of sight. Then, as mother of this heiress-- the false mother, as you and I know--she thought that she would inherit the lands--and you. "That was Mrs. Ellison's plan--a very ignorant plan. Then the simple matter of a marriage--or of no marriage--between Mr. Henry Decherd and this Mrs. Alice Ellison, would enable them comfortably to share this estate. That was the way Mrs. Ellison wanted it, perhaps. But you preferred to marry the true claimant, and get rid of Mrs. Ellison. That was your plan. You wanted to cancel every possible claimant except Miss Lady, and then you wanted to force Miss Lady into a marriage with you. Do I make myself clear to you, Mr. Decherd? And do I make myself clear that this country isn't big enough for both of us? Keep quiet now. You've come to your show-down right here. "Meantime, it was part of your scheme, as I now see, to keep Miss Lady away from her friends, to poison her against those friends. You had to live, and you were a lawyer, or a sort of a lawyer. You got hold of these judgment claims against the railroad which discharged me. You told this girl that I stole those claims. You know you lied. For a time you deluded this poor girl, poisoning her mind, killing her nature with your deceit. None the less, you left behind you open proofs, ready-made for your own undoing. Why, this very name, this stage name of Louise Loisson, was banner enough to bring her real friends to her side. But you didn't know, did you, Mr. Decherd, that I had read the little book, and that I knew the Loisson history? I said it was by chance I found the book. I am ready now to say it was by fate--by justice. It's like the fetish mark on the church-door-- that negro church in the woods--like the sign on Delphine's handkerchief. Guilt always leaves a sign. Justice always finds some proof. "Now, I have a message from Colonel Blount. Here it is. He says, 'Louise Loisson our Miss Lady.' He has found out something, too, at the other end of the line, hasn't he, Decherd? Notice, he says, 'our Miss Lady.' She is ours, not yours. I am going to take her along with me, back to the Big House, and to her friend, Colonel Blount. He says, 'Watch out for Decherd.' I am watching out for him. He also says that they have caught the leader who has been making all the trouble up there in the Delta, near the Big House plantation." "Delphine!" gasped Decherd, from tightened lips, a pale horror now written on every feature. "Has she talked?"