He still remembered vividly his first trial; how glancing up from his brief, he had found his father's dark restless eyes fixed upon him; their coldly critical glance had filled him with something very like terror; and when he had spoken his voice faltered, and he had seen the shaven lips curl contemptuously; afterward, his father had said with that frank unsparing candour of his, “I suppose you can't help it that you are a fool, Jacob;” then he had added, “I always thought you took after your mother's folks; none of them ever amounted to much that I heard tell of.” But he had lived to reconsider this hasty judgment; he had seen his son grow steadily in men's esteem. Old Jacob Benson had been a very rich man, his opportunities considered. The big brick warehouses on Front Street had been his, and for years he had been the principal merchant in the town. On coming into this property, young Jacob had disposed of the store; and he was content to collect his rents from the warehouses without any speculative interest in the grain and produce they housed. He was studious and ambitious. He might have done many things with the fortune that was his, but he had preferred to remain in Benson where the very men who had distrusted his father, the men who had reason to remember him as hard and close, Had every liking for the son. When Anna took her leave of him, the lawyer turned to his desk. He had scarcely settled himself at his work again, when a carriage drew up at the curb. Sam West was on the box, and Benson hurried into the street and was just in time to open the carriage door for Virginia. “I have wanted to see you for several days, Mr. Benson,” she said. “Is anything wrong? What can I do?” He had led the way into the office; now he found a chair for her. “There is something you can do,” said Virginia, seating herself. “What, Mrs. Landray?” She put out her gloved hand and rested it lightly on his arm. “It's the one thing,” she said, smiling sadly. “I want your advice now; for later I shall want your help. It will soon be spring again, the Ohio will be open, the ice gone—” “Yes, it can't be long now until you hear,” he prompted encouragingly. . “But I am not going to wait to hear,” she said slowly. “Not going to wait to hear?” he repeated, vaguely disquieted by her words and manner. “No. I am going West to find Stephen.” “Impossible, Mrs. Landray!” he burst out; but she checked him by a gesture, a gesture that imposed silence while it banished his objections as trivial. “I have waited. I can wait no longer. I must know.” Her look had become one of settled determination. “But, Mrs. Landray, pray hear me—”