"Sit down again, child," he said. The term "child," used constantly by the negroes to express half-humorous or gentle chiding, comes very naturally to Southern lips. It carried with it little suggestion of the difference of age between them, but gave a sense of comradeship and good-will which comforted her. He pulled down a bundle of hay to cushion her seat on the steps. "Now tell me all the 'buts,'" he said. "Alas, Mr. Durgan, you cannot scold away our great trouble and my fears. You cannot smile them into insignificance; but now I am willing to tell you our story, and when it is told I hope you will see that you, too, must bury it forever in silence, as I have tried to do." She began again. "There is another reason, which you don't know yet, why I must tell you now. It is this 'Dolphus. I will try to be quick. Do you know all that was put in the newspapers about us--about the trial?" Durgan made a sign of assent. "Day after day the court discussed every detail of our family life and of that awful day--held it up to the whole world with an awful minuteness and intensity. And Hermie was in prison when she was not in court--oh, I wonder we lived--and it was all such a farce. They got hold of everything but the things that mattered. They never came near them. "They tried to make out that we hated poor mamma because she was not our own mother, and were jealous lest papa should make a will in her favor. What rubbish! She was only a pretty doll, and had money of her own. No one could hate her, and papa never thought of leaving her our money. We never thought about his will." "I quite believe that," said Durgan heartily. "The facts they did not get hold of were about the boy they made such a mystery of." "What did they know about the boy?" "One of the servants let him in, and one of the neighbors saw him come in. They both took him for a beggar: one thought he was an Italian. Hermie and I knew more. I gave evidence that he had come in, and that we had not seen him leave the hall, where he waited, or seen him again that morning, which was true. But he did not come as a beggar, he did not go away before the trouble, or vanish after it. He was hidden in the house all that day, and we arranged his escape at night. In court they never asked questions that I could not answer about him, for they never once guessed." "Guessed what?" "That we wanted to save him. Their one idea was that we wanted him to be found. Mr. Alden moved the earth to find him, and he was conducting our case." "Who was the boy?" "May I tell you all I know? The boy was 'Dolphus. He was only a messenger--a servant of that man who was raising spirits in dark rooms and making them give messages and----" "You mean Beardsley?" "Yes. You said the other night that he was supposed not to be a common medium. My sister has told me that Mrs. Durgan----" "Yes, yes, I know."