"Poor lady!" murmured Fran. "The first Mrs. Gregory--my _'friend'_-- has been dead only three years. You and she were never divorced. The lady that you call Mrs. Gregory now,--she isn't your wife, is she?"

"I thought--" he was suddenly ashen pale--"but I thought that _she_--I believed her dead long ago--I was sure of it--positive. What you say is impossible--"

"But no one can sow without reaping," Fran said, still pityingly.

"When you sang those words, it was only a song to you, but music is just a bit of life's embroidery, while you think it life itself. You don't sow, or reap in a choir loft. You can't sow deeds and reap words."

"I understand you, now," he faltered. "You have come to disgrace me.

What good will that do you, or--or my first wife? You are no abstraction, to represent sowing or reaping, but a flesh-and-blood girl who can go away if she chooses--"

"She chooses to stay," Fran a.s.sured him.

"Then you have resolved to ruin me and break my wife's heart! "The sweet uncomplaining face of the second Mrs. Gregory rose before him.

And Grace Noir--what would _she_ think?

"No, I'm just here to have a home."

"Will you enjoy a home that you seize by force?"

"Don't they say that the Kingdom of G.o.d may be taken by force? But you know more about the Kingdom than I. Let them believe me the daughter of some old boyhood friend--that'll make it easy. As the daughter of that friend, you'll give me a home. I'll keep out of your way, and be pleasant--a nice little girl, of any age you please." She smiled remotely.

He spoke dully: "But they'll want to know all about that old college friend."

"Naturally. Well, just invent some story--I'll stand by you."

"You do not know me," he returned, drawing himself up. "What! do you imagine I would lie to them?"

"I think," Fran remarked impersonally, "that to a person in your position--a person beginning to reap what he has sown, lying is always the next course. But you must act as your conscience dictates. You may be sure that if you decide to tell the truth, I'll certainly stand by you in that."

Helplessly driven to bay, he flashed out violently, "Unnatural girl-- or woman--or whatever you are--there is no spirit of girlhood or womanhood in you."

Fran returned in a low concentrated voice, "If I'm unnatural, what were you in the Springfield days? Was it natural for you to be married secretly when the marriage might have been public? When you went away to break the news to your father, wasn't it rather unnatural for you to hide three years before coming back? When you came back and heard that your wife had gone away to be supported by people who were not respectable, was it natural for you to be satisfied with the first rumors you heard, and disappear for good and all?

"As for me, yes, I have neither the spirit of girlhood nor womanhood, for I'm neither a girl, nor a woman, I'm nothing." Her voice trembled." Don't rouse my anger--when I lose grip on myself, I'm pretty hard to stop. If I let everything rush on my mind--how she--my _'friend'_--my sweet darling 'friend'--how she searched for you all the years till she died--and how even on her death-bed she thought maybe you'd come--you--"

Fran choked back the words. "Don't!" she gasped. "Don't reproach me, or I'll reproach you, and I mustn't do that. I want to hide my real heart from you--from all the world. I want to smile, and be like respectable people."

"For G.o.d's sake," whispered the other frantically, "hush! I hear my wife coming. Yes, yes, I'll do everything you say, but, oh, don't ruin me. You shall have a home with us, you shall have everything, everything."

"Except a welcome," Fran faltered, frightened at the emotion she had betrayed. "Can you show me to a room--quick--before your wife comes? I don't want to meet her, now, I'm terribly tired. I've come all the way from New York to find you; I reached Littleburg only at dusk--and I've been pretty busy ever since!"

"Come, then," he said hastily. "This way--I'll show you a room....

It's too late," he broke off, striving desperately to regain composure.

The door opened, and a woman entered the room hastily.

CHAPTER VI

MRS. GREGORY

The wind had suddenly increased in violence, and a few raindrops had already fallen. Apprehensions of a storm caused hurried movements throughout the house. Blinding flashes of lightning suggested a gathering of the family in the reception-hall, where, according to tradition, there was "less danger"; and as the unknown lady opened the door of the front room, Fran heard footsteps upon the stairs, and caught a glimpse of Grace Noir descending.

The lady closed the door behind her before she perceived Fran, so intent was she upon securing from threatening rain some unfinished silk-work lying on the window-sill. She paused abruptly, her honest brown eyes opened wide.

Fran regarded her with that elfish smile which, to the secretary, had suggested a fox. It was the coolest little smile, slyly playing upon her twisted mouth.

The perspiration shone on Hamilton Gregory's forehead. "Just a moment," he uttered incoherently--"wait--I'll be back when I make sure my library window's closed...." He left the room, his brain in an agony of indecision. How much must be told? And how would they regard him after the telling?

"Who are you?" asked the lady of thirty-five, mildly, but with gathering wonder.

The answer came, with a broken laugh, "I am Fran." It was spoken a little defiantly, a little menacingly, as if the tired spirit was bracing itself for battle.

The lady wore her wavy hair parted in the middle after that fashion which perhaps was never new; and no impudent ribbon or arrogant flounce stole one's attention from the mouth that was just sincere and sweet. It was a face one wanted to look at because--well, Fran didn't know why. "She's no prettier than I," was Fran's decision, measuring from the natural standard--the standard every woman hides in her own breast. The nose was too slight, but it seemed cut to Fran's liking.

Fran smiled in a different way--a smile that did not instantaneously flash, but darted out of the corner of her eye, and slipped along the slightly parted lips, as if afraid of being caught, and vanished, leaving a wistful face.

"And who is Fran?" asked the mild voice. The lady smiled so tenderly, it was like a mellow light stealing from a fairy rose-garden of thornless souls.

Fran caught her breath while her face showed hardness--but not against the other. She felt something like holy wrath as her presentment sounded forth protestingly--"But who are _you?"_

"I am Mrs. Gregory."

"Oh, no," cried Fran, with violence, "no!" She added rather wildly, "It can't be--I mean--but say you are not Mrs. Gregory."

"I am Mrs. Gregory," the other repeated, mystified.

Fran tried to hide her emotion with a smile, but it would have been easier for her to cry, just because she of the patient brown eyes was Mrs. Gregory.

At that moment Hamilton Gregory reentered the room, brought back by the fear that Fran might tell all during his absence. How different life would have been if he could have found her flown!--but he read in her face no promise of departure.

His wife was not surprised at his haggard face, for he was always working too hard, worrying over his extensive charities, planning editorials for his philanthropic journal, devising means to better the condition of the local church. But the presence of this stranger-- doubtless one of his countless objects of charity--demanded explanation.

He loathed the necessity that confronted him, above all the uncertainty of his situation. Hitherto the mistakes of his life had pa.s.sed over his head without dangerous explosions; he had gone away from them, and they had seemed, somehow, to right themselves.

"Come," he said bruskly, addressing neither directly, "we needn't stop here. I have some explanations to make, and they might as well be made before everybody, once and for all..." He paused wretchedly, seeing no outlook, no possible escape. Something must be told--not a lie, but possibly not all the truth; that would rest with Fran. He was as much in her power as if she, herself, had been the effect of his sin.

He opened the door, and walked with heavy step into the hall. Mrs.

Gregory followed, wondering, looking rather at Fran than at her husband. Fran's keen eyes searched the apartment for the actual source of Hamilton Gregory's acutest regrets.

Yes, there stood the secretary.