He drove slowly, his thoughts a mad whirl of fury and despair. For the first time he saw himself as he fancied he must look to her, a man past his first youth, cold, forbidding, harsh, unlovely. He perceived with a flash of prescience that she cared nothing for money, save as it signified the thing she held most dear; nothing for the position, power, and luxury for which he had sold his honor and his manhood. Stripped of these things, what must he appear in her eyes? A monster of selfishness and greed, no less; to be feared, detested, escaped by any means even to the sacrifice of brain and body. He groaned aloud in the scorching flame of his humiliation. He told himself that he would go to her, beg her forgiveness, offer her all that she had asked for, and more. He would give her the farm free of all indebtedness. Then he realized, with sickening certainty, that she would not accept anything from him. He had told her that he was her master. To escape this slavery she was about to sell herself to another. The thought was insupportable. Even while he perceived her perfect ingenuousness and the practical realization of her own worth which lay beneath this fantastic and seemingly impossible plan of hers, he sensed its frightful danger. In order to attract bidders she would be forced to advertise her plans. Who would respond? Who would buy, and for what purpose? He whipped his horse to a furious speed and soon reached his house. The newspapers, unread for days, were piled on a table near his desk. He seized one, turned to its advertising columns and rapidly reviewed their contents, then another, and another in rapid succession. At last his devouring eyes lighted and fastened upon a single paragraph, hidden among the miscellaneous advertisements where a puzzled proofreader had doubtless placed it: “For Sale at Auction [he read]: A young woman in good health, able and willing to do housework and plain sewing; or could teach a little child and care for it, would like to secure a position with a respectable family for a term of years. Her services will be disposed of at private auction to the highest bidder, for a term of three, four, or five years. Please communicate with B., _Telegram_.” Jarvis crushed the paper in his hands savagely, as though he would destroy the strange little appeal to an unfriendly world. Then he sought for and read it again, his eyes fixed and frowning. X