Miss Lady looked at her with a curious shade of perplexity on her face. "You mistake, auntie," said she. "I do not wish to be back at New Orleans. I am done with the stage--I'll never dance again. I am-- I'm just lonesome--I don't know why. I have been so troubled. I don't know where I belong. Auntie, it's an awful feeling not to know that you belong somewhere, or to some one." "You billong to me," said Madame Delchasse, stoutly. "As to that h'idgit,--no, never!" "But Mr. Eddring brought us safely through the forest," said Miss Lady, arguing now for him. "I don't know what became of Mr. Decherd, or why he left us, but we can't accuse Mr. Eddring of anything ungentlemanly after that time. But why was he so anxious to come? Why was Colonel Blount so anxious? I don't understand all these things. And Mr. Eddring and Colonel Cal seem to want to talk to each other, and not to us." "Bah! Those men!" said Madame Delchasse. "What can they do but for us? This place, it is horrible neglect'. But come, I show you my soss-_pan."_ As Miss Lady had said, Blount and Eddring were long and eagerly engaged in conversation. They were rapidly running over the new links in the strange chain of evidence which had now for some time been forging, Eddring being especially curious now as to Blount's discoveries in connection with the girl Delphine. "It's plain enough," said Blount, finally, "that this thing between Decherd and Delphine had been going on for a long time. Delphine left a good many papers, which we found among her belongings. It's all turned out just about as we figured before you went to New Orleans; but we found one letter from Decherd to Delphine that uncovered his hand completely, and it was this, to my notion, that made Delphine so desperate." "Let me have that letter, Cal." "All right, I'll get it for you after a while, along with all the other papers. It gives the whole thing away. He just told her he was through with her, and with Mrs. Ellison, too. Told her he wouldn't send her no more money, and turned her loose to take care of herself the best she could. He allowed that she, and Mrs. Ellison, too, could do what they wanted to. That was when he told Delphine that if she made him any trouble he'd come out and charge her with the train wreck. He was the planner of that wreck. He knew right where that log-pile was at. He wanted another accident on that railroad, and he wanted Delphine mixed up in it, so he could control her after that. She was willing enough, because by that time I reckon she just about hated all the world. And Decherd came down on that very train, and got off at our station just before the smash. There was a little danger in that, but at the same time it was the best way in the world to rid himself of all suspicion. After the wreck he just mixed with the crowd, and nobody thought of him one way or the other. Pretty smooth, wasn't it?