Frances colored. "I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written them,"

she said. "He needed money very much in his later years and he may have written them asking--asking for loans and offering my 'inheritance' as security. I think now that that was it. But I did not think so then.

And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of Father. He was very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he believed--he had made himself believe--that there was money of his there in America? I can't believe he--he would lie to me."

"Of course he didn't lie," said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged her for saying it. "He was sick and--and sort of out of his head, poor man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of course he didn't lie--to his own daughter. But why," she added, quickly, before Frances could ask another question, "did you go back to those precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?"

Frances looked at me. "I thought it would please you," she said, simply.

"I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And they--they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and Mrs. Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no 'inheritance,' except one of debt, that they began to show me what they really were. They wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to defraud me. It was dreadful. I--I think I should have run away again if--if you had not come."

"Well, we did come," said Hephzy, cheerfully, "and I thank the good Lord for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT."

She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in hers, hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of my unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.

"You--you haven't told her," she faltered.

"No," said I, "not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't believe it is true. Or, if it is, that it is right. Oh, my dear, do you realize what you are doing? I am--I am ever so much older than you. I am not worthy of you. You could have made a so much better marriage."

She looked at me. She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle between her brows.

"Meaning," she said, "I suppose, that I might have married Doctor Bayliss. I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished. I--I think he would have me, if I threw myself at his head."

"Yes," I admitted, grudgingly. "Yes, he loves you, Frances."

"Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt and you were almost anxious that I should marry him. It seemed to me that you took every opportunity to throw me in his way; you refused my invitations for golf and tennis and suggested that I play with him instead. It used to annoy me. I resented it. I thought you were eager to get rid of me. I did not know then the truth about Father and--and the money. And I thought you hoped I might marry him and--and not trouble you any more. But I think I understand now. You--you did not care for me so much then. Was that it?"

I shook my head. "Care for you!" I repeated. "I cared for you so much that I did not dare trust myself with you. I did not dare to think of you, and yet I could think of no one else. I know now that I fell in love with you when I first met you at that horrible Briggs woman's lodging-house. Don't you see? That was the very reason why. Don't you see?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't quite see. If you cared for me like that how could you be willing for me to marry him? That is what puzzles me. I don't understand it."

"It was because I did care for you. It was because I cared so much, I wanted you to be happy. I never dreamed that you could care for an old, staid, broken-down bookworm like me. It wasn't thinkable. I can scarcely think it now. Oh, Frances, are you SURE you are not making a mistake?

Are you sure it isn't gratitude which makes you--"

She rose from her chair and came to me. Her eyes were wet, but there was a light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.

"Don't, please don't!" she begged. "And caring for me like that you could still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my marrying him."

"Yes, yes, I came because--because I knew he loved you and I thought that you might not know it. And if you did know it I thought--perhaps--you might be happier and--"

I faltered and stopped. She was standing beside me, looking up into my face.

"I did know it," she said. "He told me, there in Paris. And I told him--"

"You told him--?"

"I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told him--" she rose on tiptoe and kissed me--"I told him that I loved you, dear. See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep that always--and I always shall."

After a time we remembered Hephzy. It would be more truthful to say that Frances remembered her. I had forgotten Hephzy altogether, I am ashamed to say.

"Kent," she said; "don't you think we should tell Auntie now? She will be pleased, I hope."

"Pleased! She will be--I can't think of a word to describe it. She loves you, too, dear."

"I know. I hope she will love me more now. She worships you, Kent."

"I am afraid she does. She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am. And I fear you don't either. I am not a great man. I am not even a famous author. I--Are you SURE, Frances?"

She laughed lightly. "Kent," she whispered, "what was it Doctor Bayliss called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to Leatherhead?"

I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at the Continental.

"He called me a silly ass," I answered promptly. "I don't care."

"Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit of one, in some things? You mustn't ask me if I am sure again. Come! we will go to Auntie."

Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the closet door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat. She heard us enter and turned.

"I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life," she announced. "And I packed this trunk, too. I guess the trembles in my head must have got into my fingers when I did it. I--"

She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. I had taken Frances by the hand and led her up to where she was standing. Hephzy said nothing, she stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the floor.

"Hephzy," said I, "I've come to make an apology. I believe in dreams and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now. You were right. Our pilgrimage has ended just as you declared it would. I know now that we were 'sent' upon it. Frances has said--"

Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more. She threw her arms about Frances' neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my utter astonishment, sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into tears. When we tried to comfort her she waved us away.

"Don't touch me," she commanded. "Don't say anything to me. Just let me be. I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this attack is just natural, that's all. I--I'll get over it in a minute. There!"

rising and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, "I'm over it now.

Hosy Knowles, I've cried about a million times since--since that awful mornin' in Mayberry. You didn't know it, but I have. I'm through now.

I'm never goin' to cry any more. I'm goin' to laugh! I'm going to sing!

I declare if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance! Oh, Oh, OH! I'm so glad! I'm so glad!"

We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning. We were to go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon that we all agreed in the end. I was the only one who hesitated. I had a vague feeling of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might not wish it, that her saying she would love to go was merely to please me. I remembered how she had hated America and Americans, or professed to hate them, in the days of our first acquaintanceship. I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum old Bayport and the fear that she might be disappointed when she saw it, that she might be lonely and unhappy there, was strong. So when Hephzy talked of our going straight to the steamship offices next day I demurred. I suggested a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the Mediterranean--anywhere. I forgot that my means were limited, that I had been idle for longer than I should have been, and that I absolutely must work soon. I forgot everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward, "regardless, like a whole kerosene oil company."

But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent upon our going to America. She wanted to go, she said. Of course she did not mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished to go to the Continent or remain in England she would be quite content.

"But, Oh Kent," she said, "if you are suggesting all this merely because you think I will like it, please don't. I have lived in France and I have been very unhappy there. I have been happier here in England, but I have been unhappy here, too. I have no friends here now. I have no friends anywhere except you. I know you both want to see your home again--you must. And--and your home will be mine now."

So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay. And the next morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another suggestion.

"Hosy," she said, "I've been thinkin'. All our things, or most of 'em, are at Mayberry. Somebody's got to go there, of course, to pack up and make arrangements for our leavin'. She--Frances, I mean--would go, too, if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do anything you asked, now. But it would be awful hard for her. She'd meet all the people she used to know there and they wouldn't understand and 'twould be hard to explain.

The Baylisses know the real truth, but the rest of 'em don't. You'd have all that niece and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any more of THAT."

"I should say I didn't!" I exclaimed, fervently.

"Yes, that's the way it seemed to me. So she hadn't ought to go to Mayberry. And we can't leave her here alone in London. She'd be lonesome, for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find out where she was, for another. It may be that that Solomon and his wife will let her go and say nothin', but I doubt it. So long as they think she's got a cent comin' to her they'll pester her in every way they can, I believe. That woman's nose can smell money as far as a cat can smell fish. No, we can't leave Little Frank here alone. Of course, I might stay with her and you might go by yourself, but--"

This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she seemed to hesitate, I asked: "But what?"

"But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry. You'd have considerable explainin' to do. And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all that packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too often before.

You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of a lookin' glass as to do the other thing. No, I'm the one to go to Mayberry. I must go by myself and you must stay here in London with her."