"Dressed in my tights and fluffy lace and jewels," Fran helped, "with bare arms and stars all in my hair…But the end came to everything when—when mother died. Her last words were about my father—how she hoped some day I'd meet him, and tell him she had forgiven. Mother sent me to her half-uncle. My! but that was mighty unpleasant!" Fran shook her head vigorously. "He began telling me about how mother had done wrong in marrying secretly, and he threw it up to me and I just told him…But he's dead, now. I had to go back to the show—there wasn't any other place. But a few months ago I was of age, and I came into Uncle Ephraim's property, because I was the only living relation he had, so he couldn't help my getting it. I'll bet he's mad, now, that he didn't make a will! When he said that mother—it don't matter what he said—I just walked out of his door, that time, with my head up high like this…Oh, goodness, we're here."
They stood before Hamilton Gregory's silent house.
"Good night," Fran said hastily. "It's a mistake to begin a long story on a short road. My! But wasn't that a short road, though!"
"Sometime, you shall finish that story, Fran. I know of a road much longer than the one we've taken—we might try it some day, if you say so."
"I do say so. What road is it?"
They had paused at the front gate, Fran in the yard, Abbott outside. It was dark under the heavy sugar-maples that guarded the gate; they could not see beyond each other's faces. Abbott felt strange, as if he knew no more about what he might do, or say, than if he had been another man. He had spoken of a long road without definite purpose, yet there was a glimmering perception of the reality, as he showed by saying tremulously:
"This is the beginning of it—"
He bent down, as if to take her in his arms.
But Fran drew back, perhaps with a blush that the darkness concealed, certainly with a little laugh. "I'm afraid I'd get lost on that road," she murmured, "for I don't believe you know the way very well, yourself."
She sped lightly to the house, unlocked the door, and vanished.