py is, but ain't no one else
knows! I can't tell a white lady all that story what ain't noways
fitten' fo' ladies to listen to, but--but somebody got to tell her,
somebody that knows jest how much needs tellen', an' how much to keep
quiet--somebody she trusts, an' somebody what ain't no special friend
o' the Lorings. Fo' God's sake, Mahsa Captain, won't yo' be that
man?"

Monroe eyed him narrowly for an instant, and then tossed away the
cigar.

"No fooling about this business, mind you," he said, briefly; "what
has Madame Caron to do with any spy? And what has Matthew Loring?"

"Madame not know she got _anything_ to do with her," insisted Pluto,
eagerly, "that gal come heah fo' maid to Madame Caron, an' then ole
Nelse (what Lorings use to own) he saw her, an' that scare her plum
off the place. An' the reason why Mahsa Loring is in it is 'cause that
fine French maid is a runaway slave o' his--or maybe she b'long to
Miss Gertrude, _I_ don' know rightly which it is. Any how, she's
Margeret's chile an' ought to a knowed more'n to come a 'nigh to
Loring even if she is growd up. That why I know fo' suah she come back
fo' some special spy work--what else that gal run herself in danger
fo' nothen'?"

"You'd better begin at the beginning of this story, if it has one,"
suggested Monroe, who could see the man was intensely in earnest, "and
I should like to know why you are mixing Madame Caron in the affair."

"She bought my baby fo' me--saved him from the trader, Mahsa Captain,"
and Pluto's voice trembled as he spoke. "Yo' reckon I evah fo'get that
ar? An' now seems like as how she's got mixed up with troubles, an' I
come to yo' fo' help 'cause yo' a Linkum man, an' 'cause yo' her
frien'."

It was twenty minutes later before Pluto completed his eager, hurried
story, and at its finish Monroe knew all old Nelse had told Delaven,
and more, too, for confidential servants learn many hidden things, and
Rosa--afterwards Pluto's wife--knew why Margeret's child was sent to
the Larue estate for training. Mistress Larue, whose conscience was of
the eminently conventional order, seldom permitting her to contest any
decision of her husband, yet did find courage to complain somewhat of
the child's charge and her ultimate destination--to complain, not on
moral, but on financial grounds--fully convinced that so wealthy a
man as Matthew Loring could afford to pay more for her keeping than
the sum her husband had agreed to, and that the you