as long as you do."

She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to
say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one
opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet
them. But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed
to be thinking, to be making up her mind.

"Don't do it, Frances," I pleaded. "Don't sing there any longer. Give it
up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up."

She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the
street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.

"Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?" she asked
quietly. "You know it would."

"And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England--at once?"

Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried
to temporize.

"We want you to come with us," I said, earnestly. "We want you.
Hephzy--"

"Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand
that you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left,
even after all that has happened. And you--What CAN you think of me! No,
I tell you! NO!"

"But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative."

She looked at me oddly. And when she spoke her answer surprised me.

"You are mistaken," she said. "I have other--relatives. Good-by, Mr.
Knowles."

She was on her way to the door.

"But, Frances," I cried, "you are not going. Wait. Hephzy will be here
any moment. Don't go."

She shook her head.

"I must go," she said. At the door she turned and looked back.

"Good-by," she said, again. "Good-by, Kent."

She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner of
the corridor.

When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.

"That's queer," said Hephzy. "I can't think what she meant. I don't know
of any other relatives she's got except Strickland Morley's tribe. And
they threw him overboard long, long ago. I can't understand who she
meant; can you, Hosy?"

I had been thinking.

"Wasn't there someone else--some English cousins of hers with whom she
lived for a time after her father's death? Didn't she tell you about
them?"

Hephzy nodded vigorously. "That's so," she declared. "There was. And
she did live with 'em, too. She never told me their names or where they
lived, but I know she despised and hated 'em. She gave me to understand
that. And she ran away from 'em,