He lived through each phase of the supposititious transaction, but not without suffering to himself. Then he dismissed the matter from his mind. He felt as one does who has awakened from a bad dream. To wrong her was impossible. He would do what was honest because it was honest, and because the habits of a lifetime would admit of nothing else. But why had he played with a possible temptation, why had he allowed such a fancy to possess him? He gave way to fear—fear of himself; and he was again weighing the merits of his case, the justice even; and he knew that it had become a struggle, a struggle to maintain himself against the willingness to do her wrong. Strangely enough he seemed to be able to watch quite impersonally the struggle that was going on in his own soul. He wondered what this tempted man would do, who in a single day had fallen away from all his nice ideals of honour! “I have found a buyer for your wild land near Wheeling,” Benson told Virginia two days later. He stood by the window with his back to the light; to him the air of that low-ceilinged room was close and stifling. “You have done what, Mr. Benson?” Virginia asked, turning quickly toward him. “I have found a buyer for your land near Wheeling,” he repeated huskily. “But should I sell? Is there need for it now?” Virginia asked doubtfully. “Why continue to pay taxes on the land?” but Benson did not meet her glance. If his life had depended on it, he could not. “Stephen always thought it might prove valuable some day.” “I fear that day is a long way off,” he said in a low voice, and still with averted eyes. “So, then, you think I should sell the land, now that I have the opportunity?” He was silent for an instant and then asked, “Would you—would you—consider five thousand dollars for the land?” The words came with an effort; they seemed to choke him. “Do you think that is enough, Mr. Benson?” “It is an unimproved property, you know.” “But even that would be almost double what Stephen and his brother paid for it.” “How do you mean, Virginia? They took it in trade from Levi Tucker.” “Oh, yes, he traded it for the distillery, have you forgotten? The distillery was valued at five thousand dollars, and the land at twenty-five hundred.” Benson glanced at her sharply. “Do you know the exact acreage, Virginia?” he asked. “There are a thousand acres; at least, I seem to remember having heard Stephen say it was a thousand acres.” It flashed upon him that she had known nothing of that second transfer of a thousand acres that the old tavernkeeper had made to the brothers. Probably she thought the sale of the distillery had been concluded by a cash payment, and that the money had been taken West for investment.