Had she darted into one of the scattered cabins that composed the fringe of Littleburg? At the mere thought, he felt a nameless shrinking of the heart. Surely not. But could she possibly, however fleet of foot, have rounded the next corner before his coming into the light? Abbott sped along the street that he might know the truth, though he realized that the less he saw of Fran the better. However, the thought of her being alone in the outskirts of the village, most assuredly without her guardian's knowledge, seemed to call him to duty. Call or no call, he went.
It seemed to him a long time before he reached the corner. He darted around it—yonder sped Fran like a thin shadow racing before the moon. She had taken the direction of the open fields, and so swiftly did she run, that the sound of his pursuit never reached her ears. She ran. Abbott ran. It was like a foot-race without spectators.
At last she reached the bridge spanning a ravine in whose far depths murmured a little stream. The bridge was new, built to replace the footbridge upon which Abbott and Fran had stood on the night of the tent-meeting. Was it possible that the superintendent of instruction was about to venture a second time across this ravine with the same girl, under the same danger of misunderstanding, revealed by similar glory of moonlight? One may do even that, when duty calls—for surely it was a duty to warn this imprudent child to go home. Conscience whispered that it would not be enough simply to warn; he should escort her to Hamilton Gregory's very door, that he might know she had been rescued from the wide white night; and his conscience was possibly upheld by the knowledge that a sudden advent of a Miss Sapphira was morally impossible.
Fran's back had been toward him all the time. She was still unaware of his presence, as she paused in the middle of the bridge, and with critical eye sought a position mathematically the same from either hand-rail. Standing there, she drew a package from her bosom, hastily seated herself upon the boards, and, oblivious of surroundings, bent over the package as it rested in her lap.
Was she reading some love-sick romance by moonlight, or—or possibly a letter? Abbott, without pause, hurried up. His feet sounded on the bridge.
Fran was speaking aloud, and, on that account, did not hear him, as he came up behind her. "Grace Noir," she was saying—"Abbott Ashton—Bob Clinton—Hamilton Gregory—Mrs. Gregory—Simon Jefferson—Mrs. Jefferson—Miss Sapphira—Fran—the Devil—" She seemed to be calling the roll of her acquaintances. Was she reading a list from the package?
Abbott trod noisily on the fresh pine floor.
Fran swiftly turned, and the moonbeams revealed a flush, yet she did not attempt to rise. "Why didn't you answer, when you heard your name called?" she asked with a good deal of composure.
"Fran!" Abbott exclaimed. "Here all alone at midnight—all alone!
Is it possible?"
"No, it isn't possible," Fran returned satirically, "for I have company."