"Poor souls!" he exclaimed; "they have been in a dreary tread-mill all their lives, and have never known the joy of one gratified ambition. If only I could conquer my own selfish desires, I could lay before them that which they never dreamed of possessing—a glorious taste of genuine happiness. It would take my last dollar of ready money, but I’d still have my interest in the new paper and this brain and will of mine. Aunt Ann would never see it my way, and she might throw me over for doing it, but why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I do it when my very soul cries out for it? Why have I been preaching this thing all this time and making converts right and left if I am to draw back the first time a real opportunity confronts me? It may be to test my mettle. Yes, that’s what it is. I’ve got to do one or the other—keep the money—or give it to them." XVI King turned towards the Dickerson place and walked on, a great weight of indecision on him. He had always held up Ann Boyd as his highest human example. She would laugh the idea to scorn—the idea of putting old Mark Bruce and his "lay-out" into such a home and circumstances; and yet, estimable as she was in many things, still she was not a free woman. She showed that by her slavery to the deepest hatred that ever burned in a human breast. No, it was plain to the young philosopher that in some things, at least, she was no guide for him. Rather might it not eventually result in the hate-hardened woman’s learning brighter walks of life from him, young as he was? And yet, he told himself, the money was his, not theirs, and few really succeeded in life who gave away their substance. The road led him past Jane Hemingway’s cottage, and at the fence, in the barn-yard, he saw Virginia. He saw her, bareheaded, with her wonderful hair and exquisite profile and curve of neck, shoulder, and breast, before she was aware of his approach, and the view brought him to a stand behind some bushes which quite hid him from her view. "It is Virginia—it must be—yes, it is Virginia!" he said, ecstatically. "She has become what I knew she would become, the loveliest woman in the world; she is exactly as I have fancied her all these years—proud, erect—and her eyes, oh! I must look into her eyes again! Ah, now I know what brought me home! Now I know why I was not content away. Yes, this was the cause—Virginia—my little friend and pupil—Virginia!" She had turned her head, and with the startled look of a wild young fawn on the point of running away, she stood staring at him. "Have you entirely forgotten me, Virginia?" he asked, advancing almost with instinctive caution towards her.