A Clandestine Adventure

"No," I answered, slowly drawing my thread through the sheer cloth. "No,
Nickols will live his own way regardless of the cogs on which it grinds.
I shall have an enormous task in keeping up with the social side of his
life, but Nickols is not the kind of a man who takes a woman into his
work."

As I made my answer I was stabbed by the memory of the words that
Gregory Goodloe had said to me on that day in the garden: "Separated
from you, you going one way and I another, I can do nothing. You
short-circuit my force--I am helpless without you." And he had been
inviting me into the work for which he had been ordained into the holy
Church of Christ. I felt myself groping blindly into the futility of my
own life, and I was sick at heart.

"And if that is so, I would be still more frightened," Jessie said,
gazing at me with dismayed and honest affection.

"Don't let's talk about it," I answered her and took up my sewing. At
that moment and from that moment I cast myself into the whole whirl of
activities in Goodloets and gave myself no more time or strength for
self-communion. I was fleeing, and from what I dared not know.

And it was a busy month that stretched from August through September.
Nickols said it would be his last fling at the old town and he proposed
to leave his mark on its mossy sides. And he did.