Said he: "Your father owes us nothing. As for the road--its debt never existed legally--only morally. And it has been outlawed long ago--for there's a moral statute of limitations, too. The best thing that ever happened to us was our not getting that money. It put us on our mettle. It might have crushed us. It happened to be just the thing that was needed to make us." Jane marveled at this view of his family, at the verge of poverty, as successful. But she could not doubt his sincerity. Said she sadly, "But it's not to the credit of the road--or of father. He must pay--and he knows he must." "We can't accept," said Dorn--a finality. "But you could use it to build up the paper," urged Jane, to detain him. "The paper was started without money. It lives without money--and it will go on living without money, or it ought to die." "I don't understand," said Jane. "But I want to understand. I want to help. Won't you let me?" He shook his head laughingly. "Help what?" inquired he. "Help raise the sun? It doesn't need help." Jane began to see. "I mean, I want to be helped," she cried. "Oh, that's another matter," said he. "And very simple." "Will YOU help me?" "I can't. No one can. You've got to help yourself. Each one of us is working for himself--working not to be rich or to be famous or to be envied, but to be free." "Working for himself--that sounds selfish, doesn't it?" "If you are wise, Jane Hastings," said Dorn, "you will distrust--disbelieve in--anything that is not selfish." Jane reflected. "Yes--I see," she cried. "I never thought of that!" "A friend of mine, Wentworth," Victor went on, "has put it wonderfully clearly. He said, 'Some day we shall realize that no man can be free until all men are free.'" "You HAVE helped me--in spite of your fierce refusal," laughed Jane. "You are very impatient to go, aren't you? Well, since you won't stay I'll walk with you--as far as the end of the shade." She was slightly uneasy lest her overtures should be misunderstood. By the time they reached the first long, sunny stretch of the road down to town she was so afraid that those overtures would not be "misunderstood" that she marched on beside him in the hot sun. She did not leave him until they reached the corner of Pike avenue--and then it was he that left her, for she could cudgel out no excuse for going further in his direction. The only hold she had got upon him for a future attempt was slight indeed--he had vaguely agreed to lend her some books.