Brian Kent did not know that Betty Jo, a few minutes later, buried the envelope he had given her deep in the bottom of her trunk without even opening it. The next day, Brian drove to Thompsonville with Betty Jo, who took the noon train for the East. The two were rather quiet as “Old Prince” jogged soberly along the beautiful river road. Only now and then did they exchange a few words of the most commonplace observation. They were within sight of the little Ozark settlement when Brian said, earnestly: “I wish I could tell you, Miss Williams, just what your coming to help me with this work has meant to me.” “It has meant a great deal to me, too, Mr. Burns,” she returned. Then she added quickly: “I suppose the first real work one does after finishing school always means more than any position following could possibly mean, don't you think? Just like your book. No matter how many you may write in the future, this will always mean more to you than any one of them.” “Yes,” he said slowly. “This book will always mean more to me than all the others I may write.” For a moment their eyes met with unwavering frankness. Then Betty Jo turned her face away, and Brian stiffened his shoulders, and sat a little straighter in the seat beside her. That was all. Very brave they were at the depot purchasing Betty Jo's ticket and checking her trunk. With brave commonplaces they said good-bye when the train pulled in. Bravely she waved at him from the open window of the coach. And bravely Brian stood there watching until the train rounded the curve and disappeared from sight between the hills. The world through which Brian Kent drove that afternoon on his way back to Auntie Sue and Judy in the little log house by the river was a very dull and uninteresting world indeed. All its brightness and its beauty seemed suddenly to have vanished. And as “Old Prince” jogged patiently on his way, sleepily content with thoughts of his evening meal of hay and grain, the man's mind was disturbed with thoughts which he dared not own even to his innermost self. “Circumstances to a man,” Auntie Sue had said, “always meant a woman.” And Brian Kent, while he never under any pressure would have admitted it, knew within his deepest self that it was a woman who had set him adrift on the dark river that dreadful night when he had cursed the world which he thought he was leaving forever. “Circumstances” in the person of Auntie Sue had saved him from destruction, and, in the little log house by the river, had brought about his Re-Creation. And then, when that revelation of his crime toward Auntie Sue had come, and the labor of months, with all that it implied of the enduring salvation of himself and the happiness of Auntie Sue, hung wavering in the balance, it was the “Circumstances” of Betty Jo's coming that had set him in the right current of action again.