We were already sailing through free territory, and even now he held on to his slaves rather through courtesy than law.
Once it was whispered that one of these slaves was white, the daughter of a wealthy planter, stolen by force, the game would be up.
But would she ever proclaim her right to freedom?
It seemed like a strange question, and yet there remained a reason still for silence.
If she was indeed Eloise Beaucaire--and even as to this I was not as yet wholly convinced--she had deliberately assumed to 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.