do what is right, as far as
you can. And you could do much."

"What should you think right?" asked Griggs, curious to know what she
thought.

"You should take Gloria to her father, as you are his friend. Since she
has left her husband, she should live with her father."

"That is a very simple idea!" exclaimed the young man, with something
almost like a laugh.

"Right is always simple," answered Francesca, quietly. "There is never
any doubt about it."

She looked at him once, and then continued to work at her embroidery.
His eyes rested on the pure outline of her maidenlike face, and he was
silent for a moment. Somehow, he felt that her simplicity of goodness
rebuked the simplicity of his sin.

"You forget one thing," said Griggs at last. "You make a spiritual
engine of mankind, and you forget the mainspring of the world. You leave
love out of the question."

"Perhaps--as you understand love. But you will not pretend to tell me
that love is necessarily right, whatever it involves."

"Yes," answered the young man. "That is what I mean. Unless your God is
a malignant and maleficent demon, the overwhelming passions which take
hold of men, and against which no man can fight beyond a certain point,
are right, because they exist and are irresistible. As for what you
propose that I should do, I cannot do it."

"You could, if you would," said Francesca. "There is nothing to hinder
you, if you will."

"There is love, and I cannot."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

PAUL GRIGGS left Francesca with the certainty in his own mind that she
had produced no impression whatever upon him, but he was conscious that
his opinion of her had undergone a change. He was suddenly convinced
that she was the best woman he had ever known, and that Gloria's
accusations were altogether unjust and unfounded. Recalling her face,
her manner, and her words, he knew that whatever influence she might
have had upon Reanda, there could be no ground for Gloria's jealousy.
She certainly disturbed him strangely, for Gloria was perfect in his
eyes, and he accepted all she said almost blindly. The fact that Reanda
had struck her now stood in his mind as the sole reason for the
separation of husband and wife.

Gloria was far from realizing what influence she had over the man she
loved. It seemed to her, on the contrary, that she was completely
dominated by him, and she was glad to feel his strength at every turn.
Her enormous vanity was flattered by his ca