I can't think of anything else. What you want to do is to scoot out to Tahlelah, Oklahoma, to this address--here's his card--tell 'em Bob sent you--" He looked at Abbott feverishly, as if almost hoping Abbott would bolt for Tahlelah then and there. His broad red face was set determinedly.

"This news is splendid!" Abbott declared enthusiastically. "I had already applied for a country school; I was afraid I had lost out a whole year, on account of--everything. I must thank--"

"Abbott, I don't want to be thanked, I haven't got time to be thanked.

Yonder's Hamilton Gregory's house and that's where I'm bound--good night--"

"But, Bob, I haven't told you my business--"

"I'll hear it later, old fellow--dear old fellow--I think a heap of you, old Abb. But I must go now--"

"No, you mustn't. Before you go into that house, we must have a little talk. We can't talk here--people are coming and going--"

_"I_ don't want to talk here, bless you! I want to go in that house.

My business is private and pressing." The gate was but a few yards away; he looked at it fixedly, but Abbott held his hand upon the agitated arm.

"Bob, what I have to tell you can't wait, and that's all about it. I won't keep you long, just turn down this alley with me, for it's a matter of life and death."

"Confound your life and death! _My_ business is life and death, too."

At that moment, a light was turned on in Gregory's library, and Grace Noir was seen to pa.s.s the window.

Abbott's hand tightened on the other's arm, as he urged, "Down that alley, a nice dark place for talking--"

"'Nice dark', be hanged!" growled Robert. "What business can you have with me that wouldn't wait till morning? Look here, I'm desperate!"

"So am I," retorted Abbott. "Bob, you've been to Springfield."

Robert Clinton s.n.a.t.c.hed open the yard-gate, muttering, "That's my business."

"Miss Noir sent you to unearth a secret."

"Oh!" exclaimed Robert, in an altered tone, stopping in the gateway, "did _she_ tell you about it?"

"No--but you've brought back that secret, and you must not tell it to Miss Noir."

"Not tell her? That's funny!" Robert produced a sound which he expected to pa.s.s as laughter. "So that's what you wanted to tell me, is it? Do you know what the secret is?"

"I do not. But you mustn't tell it."

"However, that's what I'm going to do, as soon as I reach that door-- take your hand off, man, my blood's up, by George! Can't you see my blood's up? It's a-boiling, that's what it's doing! So all you want is to ask me not to tell that secret?"

"Not exactly all."

"Well, well--quick! What else?"

"To see that you don't tell it."

"How do you mean to 'see' that I don't tell it?"

"You will listen to reason, Bob," said Abbott persuasively.

"No, I won't!" cried Robert. "Not me! _No, sir!_ I'm going to tell this minute."

"You shall not!" said Abbott, in a lower and more compelling tone. His manner was so absolute, that Robert Clinton, who had forced his way almost to the porch-steps, was slightly moved.

"See here, Abbott--say! Fran knows all about it, and you pretend to think a good deal of her. Well, it's to her interests for the whole affair to be laid open to the world."

"I think so much of Fran," was the low and earnest rejoinder, "that if I were better fixed, I'd ask her to marry me without a moment's delay.

And I think enough of her, not to ask her to marry me, until I have a good position. Now it was Fran who asked me to see that you didn't betray the secret. And I think so much of her, that I'm going to see that you don't!"

For a moment Clinton was silent; then he said in desperation: "Where is your nice dark alley? Come on, then, let's get in it!"

When they were safe from interruption, Clinton resumed: "You tell me that Fran wants that secret kept? I'd think she'd want it told everywhere. This secret is nothing at all but the wrong that was done Fran and her mother. And since you are so frank about how you like Fran, I'll follow suit and say that I have asked Grace Noir to marry me, and I know I'll stand a better show by getting her out of the hypnotic spell of that miserable scoundrel who poses as a bleating sheep--"

Abbott interrupted: "The wrong done Fran? How do you mean?"

"Why, man, that--that hypocrite in wool, that weed that infests the ground, that--"

"In short, Mr. Gregory? But what about the wrong done Fran?"

"Ain't I telling you? That worm-eaten pillar of the church that's made me lose so much faith in religion that I ain't got enough left worth the postage stamp to mail it back to the revival meeting where it come from--"

"For heaven's sake, Bob, tell me what wrong Mr. Gregory did Fran!"

"Didn't he marry Fran's mother when he was a college chap in Springfield, and then desert her? Didn't he marry again, although his first wife--Fran's mother--was living, and hadn't been divorced? Don't he refuse to acknowledge Fran as his daughter, making her pa.s.s herself off as the daughter of some old college chum? That's what he did, your choir-leader! I'd like to see that baton of his laid over his back; I'd like to lay it, myself."

It was impossible for Abbott to receive all this as a whole; he took up the revelations one at a time. "Is it possible that Fran is Mr.

Gregory's _daughter?"_

"Oh, she's his, all right, only child of his only legal wife--that's why she came, thinking her father would do the right thing, him that's always praying to be guided aright, and balking whenever the halter's pulled straight."

"Then," Abbott stammered, "Mrs. Gregory is..."

"Yap; _is_ with a question mark. But there's one thing she isn't; she isn't the legal wife of this pirate what's always a-preying upon the consciences of folks that thinks they're worse than him."

"As for Mr. Gregory," Abbott began sternly--

Robert pursued the name with a vigorous expletive, and growled, "One thing Mr. Gregory _has_ done for me, he's opened the flood-gates that have been so long dammed--yes, I say dammed--I say--"

"Bob," Abbott exclaimed, "don't you understand Fran's object in keeping the secret? It's on account of Mrs. Gregory. If _she_ finds it out--that she's not legally married--don't you see? Of course it would be to Fran's interests--bless her heart! What a--what a Nonpareil!"

"'Tain't natural," returned Clinton, "for any girl to consult the interests of the woman that's supplanted her mother. No, Fran's afraid to have it told for fear she'd be injured by your cut-gla.s.s paragon, your religion-stuffed pillow that calls itself a man."

"Fran afraid? That's a joke! I tell you, she's thinking only of Mrs.

Gregory."

"I'm sorry for Mrs. Gregory," Robert allowed, "but Grace Noir is more to me than any other woman on earth. You don't see the point. When I think of a girl like Grace Noir living under the same roof with that-- that--"

"Mr. Gregory," Abbott supplied.