He paused for a moment. Then he turned directly upon Ducie. “While I should be sorry, Mr. Ducie, if you should grudge me my rightful holding, I observe that your brother does not share your view. He acquiesced in the existing status by renting certain of these lands while in my uncle’s possession before I succeeded under the will.” “By no means, by no means,” cried Ducie, furiously. “He is no tenant of yours. He only purchased the standing crop of cotton from your uncle’s tenant, who was obliged to leave the country for a time--shot a man. But, as I understand it, you could not plead that acquiescence, even if it existed, in the event that the release could be found,--take advantage of your own tort in the foreclosure of a mortgage duly paid.” “Oh, if you talk of ‘torts,’ this ‘knowledge is too excellent for me, I cannot attain unto it.’” Floyd-Rosney retorted, lightly. His wife still held her fork in her hand, but he significantly placed her finger-bowl beside her plate. Then he rose. “Any rights that you can prove to my estate of Duciehurst, Mr. Ducie, will be gladly conceded by me. Kindly remember that, if you please.” His wife was constrained to rise and he stood aside with a bow to let her pass first down the restricted space between the tables and the wall. They were out on the guards when she lifted her eyes to his and laid her hand on his arm. “Why did you never tell me that the property which has lately come to you really belongs to the Ducies?” He stared down at her, too astonished to be angry. “Why? Because it is a lie. The Ducies have not a vestige of a right to it.” “Oh, no, no. The Ducies would never seek to maintain a lie. Only they can’t substantiate their claim on account of the disastrous chances of war.” She put her hands before her face and shook her head. When she looked up again there were vague blue circles beneath her eyes. The nervous stress of the incident and some unformulated association with the idea were obviously bearing on her heavily. “It seems to me that we ought not to keep it,” she faltered. “Keep it!” he thundered. “Why, we, that is our predecessors, have owned it for the last forty years, without a question. Why, Paula, are you crazy? The whole affair went through the courts forty years ago. ‘_Ought not to keep it!_’ The Ducie heir, this man’s father, who was then a minor, had not a scrap of paper nor one material witness, only the general understanding in the country that as Carroll Carriton happened to be in Mississippi at the time, and George Blewitt Ducie had a lot of specie from running his cotton through the blockade to England, he paid off the mortgage in gold. But that was mere hearsay, chiefly rumor of the gabble of the men who, it was claimed, had witnessed the execution of the quit-claim, and who took occasion to die immediately thereafter.”