"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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed, 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.

CHAPTER XV

IN SURE-ENOUGH COUNTRY

One morning, more than a month after the closing days of school, Abbott Ashton chanced to look from his bedroom window as Hamilton Gregory's buggy, with Fran in it, pa.s.sed.

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" Simon Jefferson; still, for all his fifty years and his weak heart, it was not 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 st.u.r.dy 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 ma.s.sive 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 pa.s.s, 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.