“Exactly! That’s it!” said the Goblin. “She--she IS! The girl whose first affections you won and threw over! That was a nasty trick of yours, McNason! You did it for Money--yes!--you’ve always done everything for Money! But the girl deserved a better fate than either YOU or your MONEY!--and she’s got it! There she is--a beloved woman, wife, and mother. Just as pretty as you’re plain! She’s poor and you’re rich. But she’s contented and you’re wretched! She has three sons--all clever bright boys,--and you haven’t an heir to your name! You treated her like a CAD,--and she has married a MAN! He hasn’t millions, but he has Heart. Heart is a curious thing, McNason! You don’t know what it is, but it’s really a curious thing! It makes Happiness,--and you don’t know what _that_ is either!” McNason listened dreamily. All desire to resent or deny the Goblin’s accusations had died out of him. He looked yearningly over that barred garden gate as an unforgiven sinner might look at the closed doors of Paradise. So that beautiful woman with the golden-haired boy was Lilias? Lilias was her name, he remembered;--he had called her familiarly by it in the old days,--days which he recalled now with a sense of imminent desolation. Lilias had married and was happy. Did her happiness please him? No, he could not say it did. A bitter jealousy burnt in his soul,--a wrathful impatience with Deity. Why was the future veiled? Why were men left so much in the dark concerning their destinies? How could he ever have guessed that Lilias would have ripened from the timid, pretty, trusting girl he had known, into this gracious, lovely, and loving woman with all the sacred sweetness of home enfolding her as securely as a rose is enfolded by the cherishing summer air! And still he looked at her,--and still the bitterness in him grew yet more bitter, and in a kind of impotent anger he shook the garden gate with both his hands, determined to force it open. “Steady, McNason!” said the Goblin at this juncture--“You’re not master here, you know! Every man’s house is his castle! You want to be a burglar, do you? So like you! I know a lot of fellows who feel that way! When they see a man happier than themselves, with a nice wife belonging to him, they try to steal the wife away and make him wretched! It’s a fashionable pastime with them, and they call it ‘Souls!’ Oh, Beelzebub! When they find out what Souls really _are_, won’t they be sorry for themselves! Come along, McNason!” But Josiah clung to the garden gate. “Lilias! Lilias!” he called. But Lilias, laughing, was playing with her boy’s curls, and neither turned her head nor raised her eyes. The Goblin chuckled.