interested me, and I asked quite a few questions about them. At first
Haines was close as a clam, but finally loosened up, and this is about
how the story runs, as he told it. It wasn't generally known, but it
seems that Lucius Beaucaire has been married twice--the first time to a
Creole girl in New Orleans when he was scarcely more than a boy.
Nobody now living probably knows what ever became of her, but likely
she died early; anyway she never came north, or has since been heard
from. The important part is that she gave birth to a son, who remained
in New Orleans, probably in her care, until he was fourteen or fifteen
years old. Then some occurrence, possibly his mother's death, caused
the Judge to send for the lad, whose name was Adelbert, and had him
brought to Missouri. All this happened before Haines settled at the
Landing, and previous to Beaucaire's second marriage to Mademoiselle
Menard. Bert, as the boy was called, grew up wild, and father and son
quarreled so continuously that finally, and before he was twenty, the
latter ran away, and has never been heard of since. All they ever
learned was that he drifted down the river on a flatboat."

"And he never came back?"

"Not even a letter. He simply disappeared, and no one knows to this
day whether he is alive or dead. At least if Judge Beaucaire ever
received any word from him he never confessed as much to Haines.
However, the boy left behind tangible evidence of his existence."

"You mean--"

"In the form of a child, born to a quadroon slave girl named Delia.
The mother, it seems, was able in some way to convince the Judge of the
child's parentage. All this happened shortly before Beaucaire's second