So it was that one thing and another happened to prevent his seeing Virginia till one morning at Wilson’s store he heard that Jane Hemingway had, in some mysterious way, gotten the money she needed and had already gone to Atlanta. He suffered a slight shock over the knowledge that Virginia would now not need the funds he had been keeping for her, but this was conquered by the thought that he could go straight to the cottage, now that the girl’s grim-faced guardian was away. So he proceeded at once to do this. As he approached the gate, a thrill of gratification passed over him, for he observed that Sam Hemingway was out at the barn, some distance from the house. As he was entering the gate and softly closing it after him, Virginia appeared in the doorway. Their eyes met. He saw her turn pale and stand alert and undecided, her head up like that of a young deer startled in a quiet forest. It flashed upon him, to his satisfaction, that she would instinctively retreat into the house, and that he could follow and there, unmolested even by a chance passer-by, say all he wanted to say, and say it, too, in the old fashion which had once so potently—if only temporarily—influenced her. But with a flash of wisdom and precaution, for which he had not given her credit, she seemed to realize the barriers beyond her and quickly stepped out into the porch, where coldly and even sternly she waited for him to speak. "Virginia," he said, taking off his hat and humbly sweeping it towards the ground, "I have been moving heaven and earth to get to see you alone." He glanced furtively down the road, and then added: "Let’s go into the house. I’ve got something important to say to you." Still staring straight at him, she moved forward till she leaned against the railing of the porch. "I sha’n’t do it," she said, firmly. "If I’ve been silly once, that is no reason I’ll be so always. There is nothing you can say to me that can’t be spoken here in the open sunlight." Her words and tone struck him like a material missile well-aimed and deliberately hurled. There was a dignity and firm finality in her bearing which he felt could not be met with his old shallow suavity and seductive flattery. From credulous childhood she seemed, in that brief period, to have grown into wise maturity. If she had been beautiful in his eyes before, she was now, in her frigid remoteness, in her thorough detachment from their former intimacy, far more than that. "Well, I meant no harm," he found himself articulating, almost in utter bewilderment. "I only thought that somebody passing might—" "Might see me with you?" she flashed out, with sudden anger. "What do I care? I came out here just now and gave a tramp something to eat. If they see you here, I suppose it won’t be the first time a girl has been seen talking to a man in front of her own home." "I didn’t mean to offend you," he stammered, at the end of his resources; "but I’ve been utterly miserable, Virginia."