"No, you must listen. You've nothing important to tell _me_ that 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 coa.r.s.ened 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, _she_ was 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 cried _and,_ or _nevertheless._ Sometimes Mrs. Jefferson could get a dozen _ands_ and _buts_ out 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 n.o.body 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 b.u.t.ton contests, or the Ladies' Aid would give chicken pie dinners down-town, and Mrs. Gregory would be a red b.u.t.ton or a blue b.u.t.ton, 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 want _her,_ 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 say _We,_ 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?"

"Yes!" cried Abbott sharply. "Fran, you are right. I have been--all of us have been--clinging to appearances. Yes, I know what you mean."

"You'll keep Bob Clinton from telling that secret, won't you? He's to go to-night, on the long journey--to-night, after the board meeting.

It'll take him three or four days. Then he'll come back..."

"But he'll never tell the secret," Abbott declared. His mouth closed as by a spring.

Fran s.n.a.t.c.hed up the whip, and leaned over as if to lash the empty shafts. She had suddenly become the child again. "We must drive out of Sure-Enough Country, now. Time to get back to the Make-Believe World.

You know it isn't best to stay long in high alt.i.tudes. I've been pretty high--I feel like I've been breathing pretty close to--heaven."

She stood up, and the lap-robe fell about her like green waves from which springs a laughing nymph.

Abbott still felt stunned. The crash of an ideal arouses the echo--"Is there no truth in the world?" But yes--Fran was here, Fran the adorable.

"Fran," he pleaded, _"don't_ drive out of Sure-Enough Country. Wait long enough for me to tell you what you are to me."

"I know what I am to you," Fran retorted--_"Git ap!"_

"But what am I to you? Don't drive so fast--the trees are racing past like mad. I won't leave Sure-Enough Country until I've told you all--"

"You shall! No, I'll not let you take this whip--"

"I will take it--let go--Fran! Blessed darling Fran--"