"Oh, Miss Grace, if my wife were only—like you—I mean, about going to church!"
"I consider it," she responded, "the most important thing in the world." Her emphatic tone proved her sincerity. The church on Walnut Street stood, for her, as the ark; those who remained outside, at the call of the bell, were in danger of engulfment.
After a long silence, Grace looked up from her typewriter. "Mr.
Gregory," she said pausingly, "you are unhappy."
Nothing could have been sweeter to him than her sympathy, except happiness itself. "Yes," he admitted, with a great sigh, "I am very unhappy, but you understand me, and that is a little comfort. If you should marry Bob Clinton—Grace, tell me you'll not think of it again."
"And you are unhappy," said Grace, steadfastly ruling Bob Clinton out of the discussion, "on account of Fran."
He burst forth impulsively—"Ever since she came to town!" He checked himself. "But I owe it to my friend to shelter her. She wants to stay and—and she'll have to, if she demands it."
"You are unhappy," Grace quietly pursued, "because her character is already formed, because she is a girl who laughs at sacred things, and mocks the only true objects of life. You know it is too late to change her, and you know her influence is bad for—for everybody in this house."
"But it can't be helped," he insisted disconsolately. "If she wants to stay, I can't help it. But, Grace, you are right about her influence. Even my wife finds new strength to resist what she knows to be her duty, because the girl likes her."
"Do you owe more to your dead friend," Grace asked, with passionate solemnity, "than to the living God?"
He shrank back. "But I can't send her away," he persisted in nervous haste. "I can't. But heaven bless you, Grace, for your dear thought of me."