For the most part, that was a silent walk to Hamilton Gregory's. Abbott Ashton pushed the wheel-chair, and it was only Mrs. Jefferson, ignorant of what had taken place, who commented on the bright moon, and the relief of rose-scented breezes after the musty auditorium of Walnut Street church.
"They were bent and determined on Fran going to choir practice," the old lady told Abbott, "so Lucy and I went along to encourage her, for they say she has a fine voice, and they want all the good singing they can have at Uncle Tobe Fuller's funeral. Uncle Tobe, he didn't know one tune from another, but now that he's dead, he knows 'em all—for he was a good man. I despise big doings at funerals, but I expect to go, and as I can't hear the solos, nor the preacher working up feelings, all I'll have to do will be to sit and look at the coffin."
"Mother," said Mrs. Gregory, "you are not cheerful to-night."
"No," the other responded, "I think it's from sitting so long by theWhited Sepulcher."
Mrs. Gregory spoke into the trumpet, with real distress—"Mother, mother! Abbott won't understand you; he doesn't know you are using a figure of speech."
"Yes," said the old lady, "Number Thirteen, if there's anything unlucky in figures."
Abbott effected diversion. "Mrs. Gregory, I'm glad Miss Noir agreed to say nothing about her discoveries, for the only harm in them is what people might imagine. I was pretty uneasy, at first; of course I knew that if she felt sheoughtto tell it, she would. I never knew anybody so conscientious."
There was a pause, then Mrs. Gregory responded, "She will not tell."
Abbott had seen them safely into the house, and had reached the gate on his departure, when Fran came running up. In pleased surprise he opened the gate for her, but she stopped in the outside shadow, and he paused within the yard.
"Fran!" he exclaimed with pleasure. "Is the practice ended?"
She made no response.
"Fran, what's the matter?"
Silence.
Abbott was both perplexed and hurt. "Remember what we said on the new bridge," he urged; "we're friends 'while we're together and after we part!'"
"Somebody ought to burn that new bridge," said Fran, in a muffled tone; "it's no good making wishes come true."
"Why do you say that? Aren't we the best of friends?"
Fran collected herself, and spoke with cool distinctness: "I have a pretty hard battle to fight, Mr. Ashton, and it's necessary to know who's on my side, and who isn't. I may not come out ahead; but I'm not going to lose out from taking a foe for a friend."
"Which you will kindly explain?"
"You are Grace Noir's friend—that explains it."
"I am your friend, too, Fran."
"My friend,too!"she echoed bitterly. "Oh, thanks—also!"
Abbott came through the gate, and tried to read her face. "Does the fact that I am her friend condemn me?"
"No—just classifies you. You couldn't be her friend if you were not a mirror in which she sees herself; her conscience is so sure, that she hasn't use for anything but a faithful reflector of her opinions. She empties her friends of all personality, and leaves them filled with their imagination of her character."
"Her friends are mere puppets, it appears," Abbott said, smiling. "But that's rather to her credit, isn't it? Would you mind to explainyourimagination of her character?"
His jesting tone made her impatient. "I don't think her character has ever had a chance to develop; she's too fixed on thinking herself what she isn't. Her opinion of what she ought to be is so sure, that she has never discovered what she really is. And you can't possibly hold a secret from her, if you're her friend; she takes it from you as one snatches a toy from a little child."
Abbott was still amused. "Has she emptied me of all she wants?"
"Yes. You have given her strong weapons against me, and you may be sure she'll use them to her advantage."
"Fran, step back into the light—let me see your face; are you in earnest? Your eyes are smoldering—Oh, Fran, those eyes! What weapons have I given her?"
Fran set her back against the fence, and looked at him darkly. Now and then some one passed, with a curious look, and constrained greeting— for in Littleburg every one was known. "The secret of my age, and the secret of my past."
"I told her neither."
"As soon as you and Mrs. Gregory wheeled away Mrs. Jefferson," said Fran, "I went right down from the choir loft, and straight over to her. I looked her in the eye, and I asked what you had been telling about me. Why, you told her everything, even that I was trying to find out whether you and I would ever—would ever get married! I might aswell say it, it came pat enough from her—_and you told! _Nobody else knew. And you dropped your King of Hearts over the fence—you told her that! And when we were standing there at the gate, you even tried—but no, I'll leave you and Miss Grace to discuss such subjects. Here we are at the same gate, but I guess there's not much danger, now!"
"Fran!" cried Abbott, with burning cheeks, "I didn't tell her, upon my honor I didn't. Ihadto admit dropping the card, to keep her from thinking you out here at midnight with a stranger. She saw us in the shadow, and guessed—that other. I didn't tell her anything about your age. I didn't mention the carnival company."
Fran's concentrated tones grew milder: "But Mrs. Gregory has known about the show all this time. She would die beforeshe'dtell on me."
"I never told, Fran. I'm not going to say that again; but you shall believe me."
"Of course, Abbott. But it just proves what I said, about her emptying her friends, about taking their secrets from them even without their knowing she's doing it. I said to her, sharp and quick, 'What have you been saying about me, Miss Noir?' She said—'I understand from Professor Ashton that you are not a young girl at all, but a masquerader of at least eighteen years.' I answered—'Being a masquerader of at least thirty-five, you should have found that out, yourself.' I hardly think she's thirty-five; it wasn't a fair blow, but you have to fight Indians in the brush. Then your friend said, 'Professor Ashton informs me that you are a circus-girl. Don't you think you've strayed too far from the tent?' she asked. I said—'Oh, I brought the show with me; Professor Ashton is my advance advertising agent.' Then she said that if I'd leave, Mr. Gregory need never know that I'm an impostor. But I told her no tickets are going to be returned. I said—'This show absolutely takes place, rain or shine.'"
"Fran," said Abbott in distress, "I want to talk this over—come here in the yard where you're not so conspicuous."
"Show-girls ought to be conspicuous. No, sir, I stay right here in the glaring moonlight. It doesn't call for darkness to tell me anything that is onyourmind, Professor."
"Fran, you can't hold me responsible for what Miss Grace guessed. I tell you, sheguessedeverything. I was trying to defend you— suddenly she saw through it all. I don't know how it was—maybe Mrs. Gregory can explain, as she's a woman. You shall not deem me capable of adding an atom to your difficulties. You shall feel that I'm your friend 'while we're together and after we part.' You must believe me when I tell you that I need your smile." His voice trembled with sudden tenderness. "You must accept what I say as the greatest fact in my life—that I can't be happy, if you are angry with me."
She looked at him searchingly, then her face relaxed to the eve of revolution. "Who have you been trying to get a glimpse of, all the times you parade the street in front of our house?"
Abbott declared,"You!"In mute appeal he held out his hand.
"You're a weak brother, but here—" And she slipped her hand into his. "If she'd been in conversation with me, I wouldn't have let her have any presentiments. It takes talent to keep from telling what you know, but genius to keep the other fellow from guessing. What I hate about it is, that the very next time you fall into her hands, you'll be at her mercy. If I told you a scheme I've been devising, she'd take it from you in broad daylight. She can always prove she's right, because she has the verse for it,—and to deny her is to deny Inspiration. And if she had her way,—she thinks I'm a sort of dissipation—there'd be a national prohibition of Fran."
"If there were a national prohibition of Fran, I'd be the first to smuggle you in somehow, little Nonpareil. I do believe that Miss Grace is the most conscientious person I ever knew, except Mr. Gregory. Just the same, I'm your friend. Isn't it something for me to have taken you on trust as I have, from the very beginning?"
His brown eyes were so earnest that Fran stepped into the shadow. "It's more than something, Abbott. Your trust is about all I have. It's just like me to be wanting more than I have. I'm going to confide in you my scheme. Let's talk it over in whispers." They put their heads together. "Tomorrow, Grace Noir is going to the city with Bob Clinton to select music for the choir—he doesn't know any more about music than poor Uncle Tobe Fuller, but you see, he's still alive. It will be the first day she's been off the place since I came. While she's away, I mean to make my grand effort."
"At what, Little Wonder?"
"At driving her away for good. I'm going to offer myself as secretary, and with her out of sight, I'm hoping to win the day."
"But she's been his secretary for five years—is it reasonable he'd give her up? And would it be honorable for you to work against her in that way? Besides, Fran, she is really necessary to Mr. Gregory's great charity enterprises—"
"The more reason for getting rid of her."
"I don't understand how you mean that. I know Mr. Gregory's work would be seriously crippled. And it would be a great blow to Walnut Street church—she's always there."
"Still, you see she can't stay."
"No, I don't see. You and Miss Grace must be reconciled."
"Oh, Abbott, can't you understand, or is it that you justwon't?It isn't onmyaccount that Miss Noir must leave this house. She's going to bring trouble—she's already done it. I've had lots of experience, and when I see people hurrying down hill, I expect to find them at the bottom, not because it's in the people, but because it's in the direction. I don't care how no-account folks are, if they keep doggedly climbing up out of the valley, just give 'em time, and they'll reach the mountain-top. I believe some mighty good-intentioned men are stumbling down hill, carrying their religion right into hell."
"Hush, little friend! You don't understand what religion is."
"If I can't find out from its fruits, I don't want to know."
"Of course. But consider how Miss Grace's labors are blessing the helpless."
"Abbott, unless the fruits of religion are flavored by love, they're no more account than apples taken with bitter-rot—not worth fifty cents a barrel. The trouble with a good deal of the church-fruit to- day is bitter-rot."
Abbott asked slyly, "What about your fruit, out there in the world?"
"Oh," Fran confessed, with a gleam, "we're not in the orchard-business at all, out here."
Abbott laid his hand earnestly upon her arm. "Fran! Come in and help us spray."
"You dear old prosy, preachy professor!" she exclaimed affectionately,"I have been thinking of it. I've half a mind to try, really. Wouldn'tGrace Noir just die?…O Lord, there she comes, now!"
Fran left the disconsolate young man in wild precipitation, and flew into the house. He wondered if she had been seen standing there, and he realized that, if so, the purest motives could not outweigh appearances. He turned off in another direction, and Gregory and Grace came slowly toward the house, having, without much difficulty, eliminated Simon Jefferson from their company.
In truth, Simon, rather than be improved by their conversation, had dived down a back alley, and found entrance through the side door. When Hamilton Gregory and his secretary came into the reception hall, the old bachelor lay upon a divan thinking of his weak heart—Fran's flight from the choir loft had reminded him of it—and Mrs. Jefferson was fanning him, as if he were never to be a grown man. Mrs. Gregory sat near the group, silently embroidering in white silk. Fran had hastily thrown herself upon the stairway, and, with half-closed eyes, looked as if she had been there a long time.
"Fran," said Mr. Gregory coldly, "you left the choir practice before we were two-thirds done. Of course I could hardly expect you—" he looked at his wife—"to stay, although your presence would certainly have kept Fran there; and it does look as if we should be willing to resort to any expedient to keep her there!"
"How would a lock and chain do?" Fran inquired meekly.
"I don't think she came straight home, either," remarked Grace Noir significantly. "Did you, Fran?"
"Miss Noir," said Fran, smiling at her through the banister-slats, "you are so satisfactory; you always say just about what I expect. Yes, I came straight home. I'm glad it's your business, so you could ask."
Hamilton Gregory turned to his wife again, with restraint more marked. "Next Sunday is roll-call day, Mrs. Gregory. The board has decided to revise the lists. We've been carrying so many names that it's a burden to the church. The world reproaches us, saying, 'Isn't So-and-so a member? He never attends, does he?' I do hope you will go next Sunday!" Mrs. Gregory looked down at her work thoughtfully, then said, "Mother would be left—"
"It's just this way," her husband interposed abruptly: "If no excuses, such as sickness, are sent, and if the people haven't been coming for months, anddon'tintend coming, we are simply determined to drop the names—strike 'em out.Webelieve church members should show where they stand. And—and if you—"
Mrs. Gregory looked up quietly. Her voice seemed woven of the silk threads she was stitching in the white pattern. "If I am not a member of the church, sitting an hour in the building couldn't make me one."
Simon Jefferson cried out, "Is that my sister Lucy? Blessed if I thought she had so much spirit!"
"Do you callthatspirit?" returned Gregory, with displeasure.
"Well!" snorted Simon, "what doyoucall it, then?"
"Perhaps," responded Gregory, with marked disapprobation, "perhaps itwasspirit."
Grace, still attired for the street, looked down upon Mrs. Gregory as if turned to stone. Her beautiful face expressed something like horror at the other's irreverence.
Fran shook back her hair, and watched with gleaming eyes from behind the slats, not unlike a small wild creature peering from its cage.
"Oh," cried Fran, "Miss Noir feelssobad!"
Grace swept from the hall, her rounded figure instinct with the sufferings of a martyr.
Fran murmured, "That killed her!"
"Andyou!" cried Gregory, turning suddenly in blind anger upon the other—"you don't care whose heart you break."
"Ihaven't any power over hearts," retorted Fran, gripping her fingers till her hands were little white balls. "Oh, if I only had! I'd get at 'em, if I could—like this…"
She leaped to her feet.
"Am I always to be defied by you?" he exclaimed; "is there to benoend to it? But suppose I put an end to it, myself—tell you that this is no place for you—"
"You shall never say that!" Mrs. Gregory spoke up, distinctly, but not in his loud tones. She dropped her work in some agitation, and drew Fran to her heart. "I have a friend here, Hamilton—one friend—and she must stay."
"Don't you be uneasy, dear one," Fran looked up lovingly into the frightened face. "He won't tell me to go. He won't put an end to it. He won't tell meanything!"
"Listen to me, Lucy," said Gregory, his tone altering, "yes, she must stay—that's settled—she must stay. Of course. But you—why will you refuse what I ask, when for years you were one of the most faithful attendants at the Walnut Street church? I am asking you to go next Sunday because—well, you know how people judge by appearances. I'm not asking it for my sake—of courseIknow your real character—but go for Miss Grace's sake—go to showherwhere you stand. Lucy, I told her on the way from choir practice—I promised her that you should be there."
"How is it about church attendance, anyway?" asked Fran, with the air of one who seeks after knowledge. "I thought you went to church for the Lord's sake, and not for Miss Noir's."
"I have given you my answer, Mr. Gregory," said his wife faintly, "butI am sorry that it should make me seem obstinate—"
He uttered a groan, and left the hall in despair. His gesture said that he must give it up.
Mrs. Gregory folded her work, her face pale and drawn, her lips tremulous. She looked at Fran, and tried to smile. "We must go to rest, now," she said—"if we can."
The next day found Fran the bluest of the blue. No laughing now, as she sat alone, half-way up the ladder leading to Gregory's barn-loft. She meant to be just as miserable as she pleased, since there was no observer to be deceived by sowing cheat-seed of merriment.
"The battle's on now, to a finish," muttered Fran despondently, "yet here I sit, and here I scrooch." With her skirts gathered up in a listless arm till they were unbecomingly abridged, with every muscle and fiber seeming to sag like an ill-supported fence, Fran's thoughts were at the abysmal stage of discouragement. For a time, there seemed in her heart not the tiniest taper alight, and in this blackness, both hope and failure were alike indistinguishable.
"But we'll see," she cried, at last coming down the ladder, "we'll see!" and she clenched her fists, flung open the barn-door and marched upon the house with battle in her eyes. Girding up her loins—that is, smoothing her hair—and sharpening her weapons for instant use, she opened the library door.
She knew Grace Noir had gone to the city with Robert Clinton, and yet her feeling on seeing Hamilton Gregory alone, was akin to surprise. How queerly lonesome he looked, without his secretary! There was something ghostly about Grace Noir's typewriter—it seemed to have fallen into Fran's power like an enemy's trophy too easily captured. The pens and pencils were at her mercy, so readily surrendered that they suggested treachery. Did an ambuscade await her? But impossible— no train returned from the city until nine in the evening, and it was now only three in the afternoon—six hours of clear field.
She found the philanthropist immersed in day-dreams. So deep was he below the surface of every-day thoughts, that he might be likened to a man walking on the floor of the sea. The thought of the good his money and influence were accomplishing thrilled his soul, while through the refined ether of this pious joy appeared the loveliness of Grace Noir, lending something like spiritual sensuousness to his vision of duty.
He did not want the applause of the general public any more than he wanted his past unearthed. It was enough if his philanthropy was known to God and Grace Noir. She stood, to his mind, as a symbol of religion—there can be no harm in reverencing symbols.
Fran's eyes drew him abruptly from the bottom of the sea. He emerged, chilled and trembling. "Fran," he said, as if she had appeared in answer to a summons, "I am unhappy about you. Your determination to have nothing to do with the church not only distresses but embarrasses me. You have insisted on coming into my life. Then why do you disgrace it? You pretend that you want to be liked by us, yet you play cards with strangers at night—it's outrageous. You even threw a card in my yard where a card was never seen before."
"Do you think cards so very wicked?" asked Fran, looking at him curiously.
"You know what I think. I look on gambling as immoral. But it ought to be enough for me simply to forbid it. Cards, and dancing, and the theater—these things are what destroy the influence of the church."
"And not going to the meeting-house," remarked Fran, with quiet irony,—"that's perfectly dreadful."
She closed the door, and placed her back against it. A shake of her head seemed to throw aside what they had been saying as of no more importance than the waving tresses of black hair. She looked him in the eyes, and said abruptly—
"I want to be your secretary."
Hamilton gripped his chair. He found the air hard to breathe after his submarine inaction—doubtless he had stayed under too long. "Ihavea secretary," he retorted, looking at her resentfully. He checked words he would have liked to utter, on reflecting that his secret was in Fran's keeping. She need but declare it, and his picture would blossom forth in all the papers of the big cities. How Grace would shrink from him, if she knew the truth—how that magnificent figure would turn its back upon him—and those scornful, imperious, never- faltering eyes…
Fran drew nearer. She seated herself upon the arm of a chair, one foot on the floor, and spoke with restrained intensity: "I'm well enough educated. I can take dictation and make good copy."
He allowed his tone to sound defiance—"I already have a secretary."
Fran continued with an effort, "Mother didn't like studying, very well, but she was determined to get me out of the condition I was born in; she taught me all she knew. When I caught up, she'd go digging ahead on her own account to pull me a little higher. Wasn't she splendid! So patient—" Fran paused, and stared straight before her, straight into the memory of her mother's eyes.
Gregory reflected—"If this child had not come, had not intruded herself upon my life! Haven't I suffered enough for my follies?"
"When mother died," Fran resumed, "she thought maybe Uncle Ephraim had mellowed, so I went to him, because I thought I couldn't get along without love." She shook her head, with a pathetic little smile. "But I could! Uncle Ephraim didn't mellow, he dried up. He blamed me for being born—I think, myself, it was a mistake. He turned me out, but I was so tough I just couldn't be winter-killed. After that I went back to the show and stocked up in experience. I mention it to point out that a mild little job like being your private secretary wouldn't strain a muscle. I expect I could even be a foreign secretary. It's as easy to walk a rope that's rigged high, as one near the ground. All the trouble is in the imagination."
Gregory's voice cut across hers, showing no comprehension of her last words: "My secretary must be in sympathy with my work. To exercise such talents as I have, is my religion, and I need a helper whose eyes are fixed upon the higher life. This is final, and the subject must never be reopened. I find it very painful."
Fran's discovery that he had not heard her plea, crimsoned her face. She jumped from the armchair, breathing rapidly. "Then," she cried, "if you won't have me, get another. The one you have must go."
"She shall do nothing of the sort," he coldly responded.
"Yes," Fran retorted violently, "I tell you she must go!" He struck the table with his palm. "Never!"
"Shall I use my last resource?" Fran's eyes gleamed ominously.
The hand upon the table became a fist. That was his only reply.
"I would entreat you," said Fran, faltering, "and with tears—but what good would it do? None. There's no use for one woman to weep if another woman is smiling. Dismiss your secretary."
He leaned toward her from over the table, and spoke in a low level tone: "I am going to appeal to your better nature. Think of the girls of the street who need rescue, and the women of the cities who are dying from neglect and vice. If you hinder my work, let the souls of these outcasts be upon your soul! You can ruin me, but not without ruining my good works. I don't ask you to keep silent on my account— what am I but an instrument in the hands of Providence?—but for the sake of the homeless thousands. I have atoned for my past, but the world, always ready to crucify the divine, would rejoice to point the finger of scorn at me, as if I were still the fool of twenty years ago."
"But your secretary—"
"She is a vital factor in my work. Remove her, and the work ceases."
"How important!" cried Fran, throwing back her head. "What will God dowhen she dies?"
"Perhaps I have gone too far. Still, it would be impossible to replace her."
Fran made a step toward him—"My mother was replaced."
He started up. "You shall not speak of that. She lived her life, and I demand the right to live mine. I tell you, the past is ended."
"But I am here," returned Fran. "I have not ended. Can't you look into my face and see my mother living? She paid for her secret marriage, wandering over the face of the earth with her baby, trying to find you. I don't deny that you've paid for all—yes, even for your desertion and your living a hidden life in this town. Maybe you've suffered enough. But that isn't the question. Look at me. I am here. I have come as truly out of your past as out of the past of my darling, uncomplaining—what did you call her?—'friend'. And being here, I ask, 'What will you do with me?' All I want is—just a little love."
The long loneliness of her life found expression in the eager voice, in the yearning eyes. As he stared at her, half-stupefied, he imagined she was holding out her arms to him in pleading. But it was not this erect form, slight and tense, that reached forth as if to clasp him to her heart; it was a memory of his youth, a memory that in some oddmanner blurred his perception of the living presence. From the fragile body of Fran, something leaped toward him, enveloping, overpowering.
It was partly Fran, and partly somebody else—how well he knew that other somebody, that dead woman who had found reincarnation in the soul of this wanderer.
She thought his covered face a token of weakening. "You must have loved my mother once. Is it all so dead and forgotten that there is none left for your child?"
But she was seeking to play upon strings that had long since ceased to vibrate. He could not bring back, even in retrospect, the emotions inspired by Josephine Derry. Those strings had been tuned to other love-harmonies. To remember Fran's mother was to bring back not the rapture of a first passion, but the garrish days of disillusionment. He even felt something like resentment because she had remained faithful—her search and unending love for him made so much more of his desertion than ever he had made.
He could not tell Fran that he had never loved her mother. The dead must not be reproached; the living could not be denied—so he was silent.
His silence inspired Fran with hope. "I am so lonely, so lonely!" she murmured plaintively, "so very lonely! There seems a reason for everybody but me—I can't be explained. That's why I am disliked. If there could be one heart for me to claim—whose heart should it be? Does no sort of feeling tell you whose heart it should be?"
"Of course you are lonely, child, but that is your fault. You are in this house on a footing of equality, and all seem to like you, except Miss Grace—and I must say, her disapproval disturbs you very little. But you won't adopt our ways. You get yourself virtually expelled from school—do you blame me for that? You won't go to church—can you expect church people to like you? You make everybody talk by your indiscreet behavior—then wonder that the town shuns your society, and complain because you feel lonesome!"
Fran's eyes filled with tears. "If you believe in me—if you try to like me—that's all I ask. The whole town can talk, if I have you. I don't care for the world and its street corners—there are no street corners in my world."
"But, child—"
"You never call me Fran if you can help it," she interposed passionately." Even the dogs have names. Call me by mine; it's Fran. Say it, say it. Call me—oh, father,father. I want your love."
"Hush!" he gasped, ashen pale. "You will be overheard."
She extended her arms wildly: "What do you know about God, except that He'sFather. That's all—Father—and you worship Him as His son. Yet you want me to care for your religion. Then why don't you show me the way to God? Can you love Him and deny your own child? Am I to pray to Him as my Father in Heaven, but not dare acknowledge my father on earth? No! I don't know how others feel, but I'll have to reach heavenly things through human things. And I tell you that you are standing between me and God, just as the lives of so many Christians hide God from the world."
"Hush, hush!" cried Gregory. "Child! this is sacrilege!"
"No, it is not. I tell you, I can't see God, because you're in the way. You pray 'Our Father who art in Heaven…give us this day our daily bread.' And I pray to you, and I say, My father here on earth, give me—give me—your love. That's what I want—nothing else—I want it so bad…I'm dying for it, father, can't you understand? Look—I'm praying for it—" She threw herself wildly at his feet.
Deeply moved, he tried to lift her from the ground.
"No," cried Fran, scarcely knowing what she said, "I will not get up till you grant my prayer. I'm not asking for the full rich love a child has the right to expect—but give me a crust, to keep me alive— father, give me my daily bread. You needn't think God is going to answer your prayers, if you refuse mine."
Hamilton Gregory took her in his arms and held her to his breast. "Fran," he said brokenly, "my unfortunate child…my daughter—oh, why were you born?"
"Yes," sobbed Fran, resting her head upon his bosom, "yes, why was I born?"
"You break my heart," he sobbed with her.
"Fran, say the word, and I will tell everything; I will acknowledge you as my daughter, and if my wife—"
Fran shook her head. "You owe no more to my mother than to her," she said, catching her breath. "No, the secret must be kept—always. Nothing belongs to us but the future, since even the present belongs to the past. Father—I must never call you that except when we are alone—I must always whisper it, like a prayer—father, let me be your secretary."
It was strange that this request should surround Fran with the chill atmosphere of a tomb. His embrace relaxed insensibly. His moment of self-abnegation had passed, and life appeared suddenly at the level. He looked at his daughter in frightened bewilderment, as if afraid she had drawn him too far from his security for further hiding. During the silence, she awaited his decision.
It was because of her tumultuous emotions that she failed to hear advancing footsteps.
"Some one is coming," he exclaimed, with ill-concealed relief. "We mustn't be seen thus—we would be misunderstood." He strode to the window, and pretended to look out. His face cleared momentarily.
The door opened, and Grace Noir started in, then paused significantly."Am I interrupting?" she asked, in quietest accent.
"Certainly not," Gregory breathed freedom. His surprise was so joyful that he was carried beyond himself. "Grace! It's Grace! Then you didn't go to the city with Bob. There wasn't any train—"
"I am here—" began Grace easily—
"Yes, of course, that's the main thing," his delight could not be held in check. "You are here, indeed! And you are looking—I mean you look well—I mean you are not ill—your return is so unexpected."
"I am here," she steadily persisted, "because I learned something that affects my interests. I went part of the way with Mr. Clinton, but after thinking over what had been told me, I decided to leave the train at the next station. I have been driven back in a carriage. I may as well tell you, Mr. Gregory, that I am urged to accept a responsible position in Chicago."
He understood that she referred to marriage with Robert Clinton."But—" he began, very pale.
She repeated, "A responsible position in Chicago. And I was told, this morning, that while I was away, Fran meant to apply for the secretaryship, thus taking advantage of my absence."
Fran's face looked oddly white and old, in its oval of black hair. "Who told you this truth?" she demanded, with a menacing gleam of teeth.
"Who knew of your intentions?" the other gracefully said. "But that is no matter. The point is that I have this Chicago opportunity. So if Mr. Gregory wants to employ you, I must know it at once, to make my arrangements accordingly."
"Can you imagine," Hamilton cried reproachfully, "that without any warning, I would make a change? Certainly not. I have no intention of employing Fran. The idea is impossible. More than that, it is—er—it is absolutely preposterous. Would I calmly tear down what you and I have been building up so carefully?"
"Then you had already refused Fran before I came?"
"I had—hadn't I, Fran?"
Fran gave her father a look such as had never before come into her dark eyes—a look of reproach, a look that said, "I can not fight back because of the agony in my heart." She went away silent and with downcast head.
One morning, more than a month after the closing days of school,Abbott Ashton chanced to look from his bedroom window as HamiltonGregory's buggy, with Fran in it, passed.
There were no more examination-papers for Abbott to struggle with; but, like bees who spend the pleasantest weather in hardest work, he was laying up mathematical sweetness and psychological succulence against the day when he might become a professor at Yale or Harvard.
Unthrifty Fran, on the contrary, was bent upon no mission of self- improvement. Long fishing-poles projecting from the back of the buggy, protested against the commercialism of the age; their yellow hue streaked the somber background of a money-getting world, while the very joints of the poles mocked at continuity of purpose.
By Fran's side, Abbott discovered a man. True, it was "only" SimonJefferson; still, for all his fifty years and his weak heart, it wasnot as if it were some pleasant respectable woman—say Simon's mother.However, old ladies do not sit upon creek-banks.
The thought of sitting upon the bank of a stream suggested to Abbott that it would be agreeable to pursue his studies in the open air. The June morning had not yet had its dewy sweetness burned away by a droughty old sun. Abbott snatched up some books and went below. In almost every front yard there were roses. Up and down the street, they bloomed in all colors, with delicate, penetrating, intoxicating fragrance. They were not hidden away in miserly back-gardens, these roses; they smiled for the meanest beggar, for the most self- sufficient tramp, for the knowledge-burdened scholar, for the whistling driver of the grocer's wagon. They had often smiled in vain for Abbott Ashton, but that was before he had made the bewildering discovery that they were like Fran.
On the green veranda he paused to inhale their fragrance.
"I'm glad you've left your room," said Miss Sapphira, all innocence, all kindness. "You'll study yourself to death. It won't make any more of life to take it hard—there's just so much for every man."
Abbott smiled abstractedly. He heard nothing but the voices of the roses.
Huge and serious, Miss Sapphira sat in the shadow of the bay-window. Against the wall were arranged sturdy round-backed wooden chairs, each of which could have received the landlady's person without a quiver of a spindle. Everything about Abbott seemed too carefully ordered—he pined for the woods—some mossy bank sloping to a purling stream.
Suddenly Miss Sapphira grew ponderously significant. Her massive head trembled from a weight of meaning not to be lifted lightly in mere words, her double chins consolidated, and her mouth became as the granite door of a cave sealed against the too-curious.
Abbott paused uneasily before his meditated flight—"Have you heard any news?"
She answered almost tragically, "Board meeting, to-night."
Ordinarily, teachers for the next year were selected before the close of the spring term; only those "on the inside" knew that the fateful board meeting had been delayed week after week because of disagreement over the superintendency. There was so much dissatisfaction over Abbott Ashton—because of "so much talk"—that even Robert Clinton had thought it best to wait, that the young man might virtually be put upon good behavior.
"To-night," the young man repeated with a thrill. He realized how important this meeting would prove in shaping his future. Miss Sapphira was too appallingly significant to mean otherwise. If anybody was on the "inside" it was the chairman's sister.
"Yes," she said warningly. "And Bob is determined to do his duty. He never went very far in his own education because he didn't expect to be a school-teacher—but ever since he's been chairman of the school- board, he's aimed to have the best teachers, so the children can be taught right; most of 'em are poor and may want to teach, too, when they're grown. I think all the board'll be for you to-night, Abbott, and I've been glad to notice that for the last month, there's been less talk. And by the way," she added, "that Fran-girl went by with Simon Jefferson just now, the two of them in Brother Gregory's buggy. They're going to Blubb's Riffle—he with his weak heart, and her with that sly smile of hers, and it's a full three mile!"
Abbott did not volunteer that he had seen them pass, but his face showed the ostensible integrity of a jam-thief, who for once finds himself innocent when missing jam is mentioned.
She was not convinced by his look of guilelessness. "You seem to be carrying away your books."
"I want to breathe in this June morning without taking it strained through window-screens," he explained.
Miss Sapphira gave something like a choked cough, and compressed her lips. "Abbott," she said, looking at him sidewise, "please step to the telephone, and call up Bob—he's at the store. Tell him to leave the clerk in charge and hitch up and take me for a little drive. I want some of this June morning myself."
Abbott obeyed with alacrity. On his return, Miss Sapphira said, "Bob's going to fight for you at the board meeting, Abbott. We'll do what we can, and I hope you'll help yourself. I don't wish any harm to that Fran-girl. Bob says I'm always expecting the worst of people and I guess I am; but I must say I don't expect half as bad as they turn out."
As Abbott went down the fragrant street with its cool hose-refreshed pavements, its languorous shadows athwart rose-bush and picket fence, its hopeful weeds already peering through crevices where plank sidewalks maintained their worm-eaten right of way, he was in no dewy- morning mood. He understood what those wise nods had meant, and he was in no frame of mind for such wisdom. He meant to go far, far away from the boarding-house, from the environment of schools and school-boards, from Littleburg with its atmosphere of ridiculous gossip.
Of course he could have gone just as far, if he had not chosen the direction of Blubb's Riffle—but he had to take some direction. He halted before he came in sight of the stream; if Fran had a mind to fish with Simon Jefferson, he would not spoil her sport.
He found a comfortable log where he might study under the gracious sky. Across the road, a bill-board flaunted a many-colored advertisement, but it did not distract his attention—it had lost its novelty from over-production. There was to be a Street Carnival beginning July first. There would be a Fortune Teller, a Lion Show, a Snake Den, etc. The Fourth of July would be the Big Day; a Day of Confetti, of Fireworks, of Riotous Mirth and patriotism—the last word was the only one on the bill not capitalized.
Abbott studied hard. He did not learn much—there seemed a bird in every line.
When he closed his books, scarcely knowing why, and decided to ramble, it was with no intention of seeking Fran. Miss Sapphira might have guessed what would happen, but in perfect innocence, the young man strolled, seeking a grassy by-road, seldom used, redolent of bush, tree, vine, dust-laden weed. It was a road where the sun seemed almost a stranger; a road gone to sleep and dreaming of the feet of stealthy Indians, of noisy settlers, and skilful trappers. All such fretful bits of life had the old road drained into oblivion, and now it seemed to call on Abbott to share their fate, the fate of the forgotten.
But the road lost its mystic meaning when Abbott discovered Fran. Suddenly it became only a road—nay, it became nothing. It seemed that the sight of Fran always made wreckage of the world about her.
She was sitting in the Gregory buggy, but, most surprising of all, there was no horse between the shafts—no horse was to be seen, anywhere. Best of all, no Simon Jefferson was visible. Fran in the buggy—that was all. Slow traveling, indeed, even for this sleepy old road!
"Not in a hurry, are you?"
"I've arrived," Fran said, in unfriendly tone.
Smaller than ever, she appeared, shrinking back in a corner of the seat, as if the vital qualities of her being were compressed to bring all within the scope of one eyeflash. Abbott loved the laced shadows of the trees upon the bared head, he adored the green lap-robe protecting her feet. The buggy-top was down and the trees from either side strove each to be first, to darken Fran's black hair with shadow upon shade.
"Are you tired of fishing, Fran?"
"Yes, and of being fished."
She had closed the door in his face, but he said—as through the keyhole—"Does that mean for me to go away?"
"You are a pretty good friend, Mr. Ashton," she said with a curl of her lip, "I mean—when we are alone."
"'While we're together, and after we part'," he quoted. "Fran, surely you don't feel toward me the way you are looking."
"Exactly as I'm looking at you, that's the way I feel. Stand there as long as you please—"
"I don't want to stand a moment longer. I want to sit with you in the buggy. Please don't be so—so old!"
Fran laughed out musically, but immediately declared: "I laughed because you are unexpected; it doesn't mean I like you any better. I hate friendship that shows itself only in private. Mr. Chameleon, I like people to show their true colors."
"I am not Mr. Chameleon, and I want to sit in your buggy."
"Well, then get in the very farthest corner. Now look me in the eyes."
"And oh, Fran, you have such eyes! They are so marvelously—er— unfriendly."
"I'm glad you ended up that way. Now look me in the eyes. Suppose you should see the school-board sailing down the road, Miss Sapphira thrown in. What would you do?"
"What should I do?"
"Hide, I suppose," said Fran, suddenly rippling.
"Then you look me in the eyes and listen tome,"he said impressively. "Weigh my words—have you scales strong enough?"
"Put 'em on slow and careful."
"I amnotMr. Chameleon for I show my true color. And Iama real friend, no matter what kind of tree I am—" He paused, groping for a word.
"Up?" she suggested, with a sudden chuckle. "All right—let the school-board come. But you don't seem surprised to see me here in the buggy without Mr. Simon."
"When Mr. Simon comes, he'll find me right here," Abbott declared. "Fran, please don't be always showing your worst side to the town; when you laugh at people's standards, they think you queer—and you can't imagine just how much you are to me."
"Huh!" Fran sniffed. "I'd hate to be anybody's friend and have my friendship as little use as yours has been to me."
He was deeply wounded. "I've tried to give good advice—"
"I don't need advice, I want help in carrying out what I already know." Her voice vibrated. "You're afraid of losing your position if you have anything to do with me. Of course I'm queer. Can I help it, when I have no real home, and nobody cares whether I go or stay?"
"You know I care, Fran."
Fran caught her lip between her teeth as if to hold herself steady. "Oh, let's drive," she said recklessly, striking at the dashboard with the whip, and shaking her hair about her face till she looked the elfish child he had first known.
"Fran, you know I care—you know it."
"We'll drive into Sure-Enough Country," she said with a half-smile showing on the side of her face next him. "Whoa! Here we are. All who live in Sure-Enough Country are sure-enough people—whatever they say is true. Goodness!" She opened her eyes very wide—"It's awful dangerous to talk in Sure-Enough Country." She put up the whip, and folded her hands.
"I'm glad we're here, Fran, for you have your friendly look."
"That's because I really do like you. Let's talk about yourself—how you expect to be what you'll be—you're nothing yet, you know, Abbott; but how did you come to determine to be something?"
Into Abbott's smile stole something tender and sacred. "It was all my mother," he explained simply. "She died before I received my state certificate, but she thought I'd be a great man—so I am trying for it."
"And she'll never know," Fran lamented.
She slipped her hand into his. "Didn'tIhave a mother? Oh, these mothers! And who can make mother-wishes come true? Well! And you just studied with all your might; and you'll keep on and on, till you're… out of my reach, of course. Which would have suited your mother, too." She withdrew her hand.
"My mother would have loved you," he declared, for he did not understand, so well as Fran, about mothers' liking for strange young ladies who train lions.
"Mine would you," Fran asserted, with more reason.
Abbott, conscious of a dreadful emptiness, took Fran's hand again."I'll never be out of your reach, Fran."
She did not seek to draw away, but said, with dark meaning, "Remember the bridge at midnight."
"I remember how you looked, with the moonlight silvering your face— you were just beautiful that night, little Nonpareil!"
"But not quite so in daylight," murmured Fran wickedly, "as this morning?"
"Anyway," he answered desperately, "you look as I'd have you look—can you ask more than that, since I can't?"
"My chin is so sharp," she murmured.
"Yes," he said, softly feeling the warm little fingers, one by one, as if to make sure all were there. "That's the way I like it—sharp."
"And I'm so ridiculously thin—"
"You're nothing like so thin as when you first came to Littleburg," he declared. "I've noticed how you are—have been—I mean…"
"Filling out?" cried Fran gleefully. "Oh, yes, and I'm so glad you know, because since I've been wearing long dresses, I've been afraid you'd never find it out, and would always be thinking of me as you saw me at the beginning. But I am—yes—filling out."
"And your little feet, Fran—"
"Yes, I always had a small foot. But let's get off of this subject."
"Not until I say something about your smile—oh, Fran, that smile!"
"The subject, now," remarked Fran, "naturally returns to Grace Noir."
"Please, Fran!"
"Yes—and I am going to say something to offend you; but honestly, Abbott, it's for your good. If you'll keep holding my hand, I'll know you can stand unpleasant truths. When you hold my hand, it seems to make everything so—so close."
"Everything is!" Abbott declared.
"I'll tell you why you hurt my feelings, Abbott. You've disappointed me twice. Oh, if I were a man, I'd show any meek-faced little hypocrite if she could prize secrets out of me. Just because it wears dresses and long hair, you think it an angel."
"Meaning Miss Grace, I presume?" remarked Abbott dryly. "But what is the secret, this time?"
"Didn't I trust you with the secret that I meant to apply for the position of secretary as soon as Grace Noir was out of the way? And I was just about to win the fight when here she came—hadn't been to the city at all, because you told her what I meant to do—handed her the secret, like a child giving up something it doesn't want."
"You are very unjust. I did not tell her your plan. I don't know how she found it out."
"From you; nobody else knew it."
"She did not learn it from me."
"—And that's what gets me!—you tell her everything, and don't even know that you tell. Just hypnotized! Answer my questions: the morning after I told you what I meant to do—standing there at the fence by the gate—confiding in you, telling you everything—I say, the next morning, didn't you tell Grace Noir all about it?"
"Certainly not."
"You had a conversation with her, didn't you?"
Abbott tried to remember, then said casually, "I believe we did meet on the street that morning."
"Yes," said Fran ironically, "I believe you did meetsomewhere.Of course she engaged you in her peculiar style of inquisitorial conversation?"
"We went down the street together."
"Now, prisoner at the bar, relate all that was said while going down the street together."
"Most charming, but unjust judge, not a word that I can remember, so it couldn't have been of any interest. I did tell her that since she— yes, I remember now—since she was to be out of town all day, I would wait until to-morrow to bring her a book she wanted to borrow."
"Oh! And then she wanted to know who told you she would be out of town all day, didn't she?"
Abbott reflected deeply, then said with triumph, "Yes, she did. I remember that, too. She asked me how I knew she was going to the city with Bob Clinton. And I avoided telling her—it was rather neat. I merely said that it was the understanding they were to select the church music. Not another word was said on the subject."
"That was enough. Mighty neat. As soon as she saw you were trying to avoid a direct answer, she knew I'd told you. That gave her a clue to my leaving the choir practice before the rest of them. She guessed something important was up. She might not have guessed all the details, but she didn't dare leave me an open field. Well, Abbott, you are certainly an infant in her hands, but I guess you can't help it."
Self-pride was touched, and he retaliated:
"Fran, I hate to think of your being willing to take her position behind her back."
She crimsoned.
"You'd know how I feel about it," he went on, "if you understood her better. I know her duty drives her to act in opposition to you, and I'm sorry for it. But her religious ideals—"
"Abbott, be honest and answer—is there anything in it—this talk of doing God's will? Can people love God and hate one another? Oh, isn't it all justwords?"Her eyes burned fiercely. "I wouldn'thavethe love that some folks give God, I'd feel myself insulted! I want something better than He gets. I want a love that holds out. I just hate shams," she went on, becoming more excited. "I don't care what fine names you give them—whether it's marriage, or education, or culture, or religion, if there's no heart in it, it's a sham, and I hate it. I hate a lie. But a thousand times more, do I hate a life that is a lie."
"Fran! You don't know what you are saying."
"Yes I do know what I'm saying. Is religion going to church? That's all I can see in it. I want to believe there's something else, I've honestly searched, for I wanted to be comforted, I tell you, Ineedit. But I can't find any comfort in mortar and stained-windows. If lightningeverstrikes a church-member between services, is his face toward God? No, people just name something religion,—and then it's wrong to find fault with it. I want something that makes a man true to his wife, and makes a family live together in blessed harmony, something that's good on the streets and in the stores, something that makes people even treat a show-girl well. If there's anything in it, why doesn't a father—"
She snatched away her hand that she might cover her face, for she had burst into passionate weeping. "Why doesn't a father who's always talking about religion, and singing about it, and praying about it— why doesn't that father draw his daughter to his breast…close, close to his heart—that's the only home she asks for—that's the home she has a right to, yes a right, I don't care how far she's wandered— "
"Fran!" cried Abbott, in great distress. "Don't cry, little one!" He had no intelligent word, but his arm was full of meaning as it slipped about her. "Who has been unkind to you, Nonpareil?" She let her head sink upon his shoulder, as she sobbed without restraint. "What shams have pierced your pure heart? Am I the cause of any of these tears? Am I?"
"Yes," Fran answered, between her sobs, "you're the cause of all my happy tears." She nestled there with a movement of perfect trust; he drew her closer, and stroked her hair tenderly, trusting himself.
Presently she pulled herself to rights, lifted his arm from about her, and rested it on the back of the seat—a friendly compromise. Then she shook back her hair and raised her eyes and a faint smile came into the rosy face. "I'm so funny," she declared. "Sometimes I seem so strange that I need an introduction to myself." She looked into Abbott's eyes fleetingly, and drew in the corners of her mouth. "I guess, after all, there's something in religion!"
Abbott was so warmed by returning sunshine that his eyes shone. "DearFran!" he said—it was very hard to keep his arm where she had put it.She tried to look at him steadily, but somehow the light hurt hereyes. She could feel its warmth burning her cheeks.
"Oh, Fran," cried Abbott impulsively, "the bridge in the moonlight was nothing to the way you look now—so beautiful—and so much more than just beautiful…"
"This won't do," Fran exclaimed, hiding her face. "We must get back toGrace Noir immediately."
"Oh, Fran, oh, no,please!"
"I won't please. While we're in Sure-Enough Country, I mean to tell you the whole truth about Grace Noir." The name seemed to settle the atmosphere—she could look at him, now.
"I want you to understand that something is going to happen—must happen, just from the nature of things, and the nature of wives and husbands—and the other woman. Oh, you needn't frown at me, I've seen you look thatotherway at me, so I know you, Abbott Ashton."
"Fran! Then you know that I—"
"No, you must listen. You've nothing important to tellmethat I don't know. I've found out the whole Gregory history from old Mrs. Jefferson, without her knowing that she was telling anything—she's a sort of 'Professor Ashton' in my hands—and I mean to tell you that history. You know that, for about three years, Mrs. Gregory hasn't gone to church—"
"You must admit that it doesn't appear well."
"Admit it? Yes, of course I must. And the world cares for appearances, and not for the truth. That's why it condemns Mrs. Gregory—and me— and that's why I'm afraid the school-board will condemn you: just on account of appearances. For these past three years, the church has meant to Mrs. Gregory a building plus Grace Noir. You'll remember I'm rather mathematical—wasn't that a day, though, when you kept me in! I think it was the first time you learned the color of my eyes, wasn't it?"
"Your eyes," he said, "are the color of friendship." "Abbott, you say the dearest things—but let's get back to our equation. I don't mean that Mrs. Gregory got jealous of Grace Noir—I don't know how to explain—you can't handle cobwebs without marring them." She paused. The gossamer shades of sensibility which she would have defined, threatened to become coarsened by the mere specific gravity of words—such words as have been knocked about the world so long that a sort of material odor clings to them.
"Jealous of—Miss Grace!"exclaimed Abbott reprovingly.
"Let's go back, and take a running jump right into the thick of it. When Mr. Gregory came to Littleburg, a complete stranger—and when he married,shewas a devoted church-member—always went, and took great interest in all his schemes to help folks—folks at a distance, you understand…She just devoured that religious magazine he edits— yes, I'll admit, his religion shows up beautifully in print; the pictures of it are good, too. Old Mrs. Jefferson took pride in beingwheeled to church where she could see her son-in-law leading the music, and where she'd watch every gesture of the minister and catch the sound of his voice at the high places, where he criedand,ornevertheless.Sometimes Mrs. Jefferson could get a dozenandsandbutsout of one discourse. Then comes your Grace Noir."
Abbott listened with absorbed attention. It was impossible not to be influenced by the voice that had grown to mean so much to him.
"Grace Noir is a person that's superhumanly good, but she's not happy in her own goodness; it hurts her, all the time, because other folks are not so good as she. You can't live in the house with her without wishing she'd make a mistake to show herself human, but she never does, she's always right. When it's time to go to church, that woman goes, I don't care if there's a blizzard. She's so fixed on being a martyr, that if nobody crosses her, she just makes herself a martyr out of the shortcomings of others."
"As for instance—?"
"As for instance, she suffered martyrdom every time Mrs. Gregory nestled in an arm-chair beside the cozy hearth, when a Ladies' Aid, or a Rally was beating its way through snow-drifts to the Walnut Street church. Mr. Gregory was like everybody else about Grace—he took her at her own value, and that gave the equation: to him, religion meant Walnut Street church plus Grace Noir. For a while, Mrs. Gregory clung to church-going with grim determination, but it wasn't any use. The Sunday-school would have button contests, or the Ladies' Aid would give chicken pie dinners down-town, and Mrs. Gregory would be a red button or a blue button, and she would have her pie; but she was always third—in her home, or at church, she was the third. It was her husband and his secretary that understood the Lord. Somehow she seemed to disturb conditions, merely by being present."
"Fran, you do not realize that your words—they intimate—"
"She disturbed conditions, Abbott. She was like a turned-up light at a seance. A successful manifestation calls for semi-gloom, and when those two were alone, they could get the current. Mr. Gregory was appalled because his wife quit attending church. Grace sympathized in his sorrow. It made him feel toward Grace Noir—but I'm up against a stone wall, Abbott, I haven't the word to describe his feeling, maybe there isn't any. Sad, you know, so sad, but awful sweet—the perfume of locust blossoms, or lilacs in the dew, because Grace has a straight nose and big splendid eyes, and such a form—she's the opposite of me in everything, except that she isn't a man—more's the pity!"
"Fran Nonpareil! Such wisdom terrifies me…such suspicions!" In this moment of hesitancy between conviction and rejection, Abbott felt oddly out of harmony with his little friend. She realized the effect she must necessarily be producing, yet she must continue; she had counted the cost and the danger. If she did not convince him, his thought of her could never be the same.
"Abbott, you may think I am talking from jealousy, and that I tried to get rid of Grace Noir so I could better my condition at her expense. I don't know how to make you see that my story is true. It tells itself. Oughtn't that to prove it? Mrs. Gregory has the dove's nature; she'd let the enemy have the spoils rather than come to blows. She lets him take his choice—here is she, yonder's the secretary. He isn't worthy of her if he chooses Grace—but his hesitation has proved him unworthy, anyhow. He'll never be to Mrs. Gregory what he was—but if she spoke out, there'd be the publicity—the lawyers, the newspapers, the staring in the streets…The old lady—her mother—is a fighter; she'd have driven out the secretary long ago. But Mrs. Gregory's idea seems to be—'If he can wanther,after I've given him myself, I'll not make a movement to interfere.'"
Abbott played delicately with the mere husk of this astounding revelation: "Have you talked with old Mrs. Jefferson about—about it?"
"She's too proud—wouldn't admit it. But I've slyly hinted…however, it's not the sort of story you could pour through the funnel of an ear-trumpet without getting wheat mixed with chaff. She'd misunderstand—the neighbors would get it first—anyway she wouldn't make a move because her daughter won't. It's you and I, Abbott, against Grace and Mr. Gregory."
He murmured, looking away, "You take me for granted, Fran."
"Yes." Fran's reply was almost a whisper. A sudden terror of what he might think of her, smote her heart. But she repeated bravely, "Yes!"
He turned, and she saw in his eyes a confiding trust that seemed to hedge her soul about. "And you can always take me for granted, Fran; and always is a long time."
"Not too long for you and me," said Fran, looking at him breathlessly.
"I may have felt," he said, "for some time, in a vague way, what you have told me. Of course it is evident that he prefers Miss Noir's society. But I have always thought—or hoped—or wanted to feel, that it was only the common tie of religion—"
"It was not the truth that you clung to, Abbott, but appearances. As for me, let truth kill rather than live as a sham. If Grace Noir stays, the worst is going to happen. She may not know how far she's going. He may not suspect he's doing wrong. People can make anything they want seem right in their own eyes. But I've found out that wickedness isn't stationary, it's got a sort of perpetual motion. If we don't drive Grace away, the crash will come."
"Fran—how you must love Mrs. Gregory!"
"She breaks my heart."
"Dear faithful Fran! What can we do?—I sayWe,Fran, observe."
"Oh, you Abbott Ashton…just what I thought you! No, no, you mustn't interrupt. I'll manage Grace Noir, if you'll manage Bob Clinton."
"Where does Bob Clinton come in?"
"Grace is trying to open a door so he can come in. I mean a secret in Mr. Gregory's past. She suspects that there's a secret in his past, and she intends to send Bob to Springfield where Mr. Gregory left that secret. Bob will bring it to Littleburg. He'll hand it over to Grace, and then she'll have Mr. Gregory in her power—there'll be no getting her hands off him, after that."
"Surely you don't mean that Mr. Gregory did wrong when he was young, and that Miss Noir suspects it?"
"Bob will bring home the secret—and it will kill Mrs. Gregory,Abbott—and Grace will go off with him—I know how it'll end."
"What is this secret?"
"You are never to know, Abbott."
"Very well—so be it. But I don't believe Mr. Gregory ever did very wrong—he is too good a man."
"Isn't he daily breaking his wife's heart?" retorted Fran with a curl of the lip. "I call that murder."
"But still!—But I can't think he realizes it."
"Then," said Fran satirically, "we'll just call it manslaughter. When I think of his wife's meek patient face—don't you recall that look in her eyes of the wounded deer—and the thousands of times you've seen those two together, at church, on the street, in the library— everywhere…seeing only each other, leaning closer, smiling deeper— as if doing good meant getting close—Oh, Abbott, you know what I mean—don't you, don't you?"