atter to Lawyer Haines at the Landing. This merely
served to confirm what Delia had told us, and, as Haines had gone to
St. Louis, we were unable to see him. We were all of us nearly crazed;
I was even afraid Rene would throw herself into the river. So I
suggested that we run away and drew money out of my private account for
that purpose. My only thought was to take a steamer up the Ohio, to
some place where we were not known, and begin life over again. Rene
had been a sister to me always; we were playmates from childhood, and I
had grown up loving and trusting Delia ever since I was a baby. No
sacrifice was too great to prevent their being sold into slavery. Oh,
you cannot understand--I had no mind left; only a blind impulse to save
them."

I caught her hand in mine and held it firmly.

"Perhaps I do understand. It was my knowledge of this very condition
which first brought me to you."

"You heard about us on the boat--the _Warrior_? Did father tell you?"

"No; it was Kirby. He was actually proud of what he had done--boasted
to me of his success. I have never known a man so heartlessly
conceited. Eloise, listen. You may have thought this was largely an
accident. It was not; it was a deliberately planned, cold-blooded
plot. I tell you that Joe Kirby is of the devil's own breed; he is not
human. Rene's father told him first of the peculiar conditions at
Beaucaire."

"Rene's father! Does--does he still live?"

"No; but he did live for years after he disappeared, supporting himself
by gambling on the lower river. At one time he and Kirby were
together. After he died Kirby investigated his story in St. Louis and
found that it was true. Then he laid this plot to gain control of
everything, including both of you girls--a plot surely hatched in hell."

"You know this to be true? How?"

"Partly, as I have said, from Kirby's own lips. In addition Jack Rale
added what he knew--they are birds of a feather."

"But it seems so impossible, so like fiction. How could the man hope
to succeed; to consummate such a crime? Besides, why should he desire
us--Rene and I--whom he had never seen?"

"It can only be explained when you know the man. He had heard you
described as a beautiful woman--that was enough for his type. He had
convinced himself that Rene was a slave--his slave, once he had
successfully played his trick. He knew you to be an heiress with a sum
of money in your own right, which he could