"Now I want you to go on and answer a few more questions," said Eddring, finally. "I suppose that while you were all there at the Big House you were partners, after a fashion. How much did you know of Delphine's stirring up the negroes in that neighborhood?" "I did not know much of it. I only guessed. I put nothing beyond Decherd." "Did you know anything about the levee-cutting?" "Nothing whatever. They didn't tell me anything of that. I presume it didn't suit Henry Decherd to tell me everything he was doing." "I can imagine that," said Eddring. "There was a time for Decherd to lighten ship, and, as you say, he had only women to fear." "I knew myself when the time came for me to leave him," said the woman, now apathetically. "I went over to St. Louis soon after Miss Lady first left the Big House, and after Decherd followed her. I knew that he was smitten with Miss Lady, and that there would be trouble, and that neither Delphine nor myself would be safe. I hid as best I could, and lived as best I could. Lately I have been frightened. I thought I would come to see you. I hoped you might help me. I don't know what I did think." "You don't know where Decherd is at present?" "No, I do not." "Do you have any hope that he will ever care for you in any way?" "Yes," said the woman, slowly and dully, "he cares for me. He'll care for me. He'll find me some day, now that you've taken Miss Lady from him." "And you will go back to him?" "Never! God forbid. Love him? No!" "Yet you think he will look you up again. Why? To get help in this lawsuit?" "You do not know him. He knows that all his hope in this lawsuit was gone long ago. He's not a fool. But he is going to hunt me up some day. He's going to find me; and then--he's going to kill me. He's killed Delphine, and he's going to kill me." The two white hands, trembling now as though with a palsy, fell on the table in front of her. Her eyes, not seeing Eddring, gazed staring straight in front of her. The horror of her soul was written upon her face. Remorse, repentance, fear for the atonement--these had their way with her who was lately known as Alice Ellison, woman of fortune, and now served ill by fortune's hand. All at once she broke from her half-stupor, her overstrung nerves giving way. A cry of terror burst from her lips. "You!" she cried, "you will not love me, you will not save me! Oh, Lady, girl--oh, is there no one, is there no one in all the world?" John Eddring took her firmly by the shoulders, and after a time half- quieted her. "Wine," she sobbed; "brandy--give me something." Eddring threw open the door. "Jack," he cried; "Jack, come here. Run across the street for me. When you come back order a carriage. This lady is ill." She sat for a time, trembling. Eddring, himself agitated, completed his hurried writing. She signed. He called a notary, and she made oath with a hand that shook as she uplifted it.