"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 God 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—"