be Rene, doing so
for a specific purpose--that object being to afford the other an
opportunity for escape. She, conscious of her white blood, her
standing of respectability, had felt reasonably safe in this escapade;
had decided that no great harm could befall her through such a
masquerade for a few days. If worst came to worst she could openly
proclaim her name at any moment, assured of protection at the hands of
anyone present, and thus defy Kirby. I recalled to memory their
conversation, which I had overheard in the library at Beaucaire; and I
understood now what had easily led to all this--her belief, from
Kirby's own words, that nothing further could be done until the
necessary legal papers had been served on her in person. This faith,
coupled with the mysterious disappearance of Rene and the quadroon
mother, and her being mistaken for the absent girl, all led her
inevitably to the conclusion that she must continue to act out the part
assumed until those others were safe beyond pursuit. With quick wit
she had grasped this chance for service; had encouraged Kirby to
believe her the slave, and then, in sudden desperation, had been driven
into trusting me in an effort to keep out of his hands.

This theory seemed possible enough; yet what she might decide to do
now, under the stress of these new conditions, was no less a problem.
She possessed no knowledge regarding the others, such as I did. She
had no means of guessing that the two others had already actually
escaped, and were even then beyond the power of their pursuers. Her
one thought still would be the continuation of deceit, the insistence
that she was Rene. To do otherwise would defeat her purpose, make her
previous sacrifice useless. She must still fight silently for delay.
Why, she had not so much as trusted me. From the very beginning she
had encouraged me in the belief that she was a negress, never once
arousing the faintest suspicion in my mind. Not by the slip of the
tongue, or the glance of an eye, had she permitted either of us to
forget the barrier of race between. Nothing then, I was convinced,
short of death or disgrace, could ever compel her to confess the truth
yet. Kirby might suspect, might fear, but he had surely never learned
who she was from her lips--that she was Eloise Beaucaire.

And was she? Was the proof of her identity, as yet produced, the story
of Elsie Clark, sufficiently satisfactory to my own mind? It became
more