Only one point occurred to me which would
tend to prove it untrue. If there was an illegitimate daughter, the
blow she had dealt her father had also deprived her of whatever income
he had allowed her, or of any hope of income from him. So she had
acted in her own despite--still, Godfrey's theory of sudden passion
might explain this away. And then, again, Miss Holladay could probably
be counted upon, her first grief past, to provide suitably for her
sister. Granting this, the theory seemed to me quite impregnable.
One other thing puzzled me. How had this woman eluded the police? I
knew that the French quarter had been ransacked for traces of her,
wholly without success, and yet I felt that the search must have been
misconducted, else some trace of her would surely have been
discovered. Miss Holladay, of course, rigidly refused herself to all
inquirers, and here, again, I found myself on the horns of a dilemma.
Doubtless, she was very far from wishing the discovery of the guilty
woman, and yet I felt that she must be discovered, if only for Miss
Holladay's sake, in order to clear away the last vestige of the cloud
that shadowed her.
Then came new developments with a startling rapidity. It was toward
quitting time one afternoon that a clerk brought word into the inner
office that there was a woman without who wished to see Mr.
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