-provided all is as it should be--give our consent to--to the
arrangement, for his sake."

I did not answer. The idea that marrying Frances Morley would entail a
sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I did not trust
myself to speak. But Hephzy spoke for me.

"What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?" she
asked.

"Why, I mean--I mean provided we learn that she is--is--That is,--Well,
one naturally likes to know something concerning his prospective
daughter-in-law's history, you know. That is to be expected, now isn't
it."

Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.

"Doctor," she said. "I wonder if your son told you about some things
Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--told him this mornin'. Did he tell you that?"

The doctor colored slightly. "Yes--yes, he did," he admitted. "He said
he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles and
was told by him some quite extraordinary things. Of course, we could
scarcely believe that he had heard aright. There was some mistake, of
course."

"There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss," said I. "I told your son the
truth, a very little of the truth."

"The truth! But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported it
to me. He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for some
unexplained reason, and was not coming back--that you did not know
where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or followed or
something. And he said--My word! he even said you, Knowles, had declared
yourself to be neither her uncle nor her guardian. THAT couldn't be
true, now could it!"

Again Hephzy and I looked at each other. Without speaking we reached the
same conclusion. Hephzy voiced that conclusion.

"I guess, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "that the time has come when you
had better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole truth about
Frances as Hosy and I know. I'm goin' to tell it to you. It's a kind of
long story, but I guess likely you ought to know it."

She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the history of
the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from America, to
our own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the astonishing
happenings since.

"She's gone," she said. "She found out what sort of man her father
really was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl--as proud and
high-spirited as she is clever and pretty an