It was in the final analysis that he reduced his case to this. He was aware that it was not alone in his relation to Virginia that he had changed; he knew that he had grown hard, and none too scrupulous; that while his outward manner remained one of consideration and kindness even, he had developed a secret passion for accumulation. This had been of steady growth. He desired wealth and power, not in any very wide sense perhaps, since he was content to be the great man of his own little community. He compared himself with what he could recall of his father, and knew that he was reverting to the strongly marked family type. He was becoming more and more the shrewd New Englander. The receding sap of pioneer times was leaving him dry and externally emotionless. Men seemed to understand the change. They came to him less often now than formally with generous projects, more often with money-making schemes. In these he was always interested. Yet throughout he had preserved a cynical contempt for himself, with a latent feeling of pity, too; for he knew just the sort of man he had been, just the sort of man he had become; and he blamed Virginia. Indeed he had come to blame her for each corrupting influence to which he had yielded, and since he blamed her, he wanted her to feel the force of his resentment. The boy had given him this opportunity in the fullest measure. He had removed him from her home, he had sent him from Benson, and he was determined that she should not see him again until it suited his whim to be generous. This might be a year hence, or it might be ten years hence; he only knew that it would not be until his mood changed, until he was ready to show kindness to her. Thus it was that Stephen's first summer was passed entirely in the East. Benson told Virginia it was better that he should become thoroughly accustomed to his surroundings; that to bring him home would only be to unsettle him. But he himself went East and Stephen spent two weeks with him. The second year passed much as the first had done, and now Virginia understood that Benson wished to wholly separate her from the boy. The lawyer had arranged that she should receive periodic reports as to his health and progress. As these were always satisfactory, she had no grounds for demanding that he should be brought back. She had Stephen's own letters, too, which after he had outgrown his first feeling of homesickness, showed that he was quite happy and contented. But with the passing of time his letters became more and more perfunctory.