When three years had passed, Donelle was no longer a simple girl. Point of Pines was as detached from her real interests as St. Michael’s was. She loved to be with Jo and Nick, but the luxury and comfort of the Walled House had become part of her life. She wished it might be that Jo and Nick could come to her; not make it necessary for her to go to them. She was not more selfish or ungrateful than the young usually are, but she was artistic and temperamental and her mind and soul were full of music and beauty. Unconsciously, she was pressing on into life by the easiest way. Life, she must have; life to the full, that had always been her ambition, but she had yet to learn, poor child, that the short, direct path that stretched so alluringly from the Walled House was not the best one for her own good. For Mrs. Lindsay she had a deep affection; for Revelle a passion of gratitude and yearning. He it was who had opened her heaven for her; he it was who subtly developed her. With no set purpose, but with the insistence that Art always demands, he brought to bear upon Donelle the arguments of devotion to her gift, her God-given gift, he reiterated. She must not let anything, any one stand in its path. She was not worthy of it unless she forsook all else for it. Donelle had accepted what was offered to her. She believed Jo Morey had the best of reasons for burying the past. As she grew older, she saw the wisdom of forgetting much and in proving herself worthy of becoming what Jo, what Mrs. Lindsay, and most of all Revelle, hoped for her. The St. Michael days were blotted out, they were but an incident at best. Jo was giving her every advantage, she must do her part. She saw the Point of Pines people on the road as she drove with Mrs. Lindsay or Jo and they were like shadows to her, they had no place in her sheltered, beautiful life. She heard indirectly from Tom Gavot, he was bravely hewing and hacking his road, poor chap. He was helping to support his unworthy father; he was coming home some day to show himself, but the time went by and he did not come! And then, quite suddenly, Mrs. Lindsay decided to close the Walled House and go abroad. Professor Revelle’s health was restored and Anderson Law had obtained employment for him. "I want to take Donelle with me," Alice Lindsay said. "She’s quite your own, Mam’selle; you stand first with her, so I can take her with a clear conscience and give her all the advantages she should have. She will come back to you in the end, or you will come to her." Jo’s lips drew close. "Will my linens pay for this?" she asked. "They will help, Mam’selle, and you have no right to stand in Donelle’s way now that we have gone so far. Some day Donelle can repay me herself, she has great gifts."