as he imagined it, kept him to the
house. He did not desire his patron's money; he began to discover how
few were his wants and how small the satisfaction of their gratification
could be. But the image he worshipped ever--and at its feet all other
desires were forgotten.

And now reality had come with its sacrilegious hand, warring upon the
vision and bidding him open his eyes and see. It was easy enough to
estimate this adventurer Willy Forrest at his true worth, less easy to
bind the wounds imagination had received and to set the image once more
upon its ancient pedestal. Could he longer credit Anna with those
qualities with which his veneration had endowed her? Must there not be
heart searchings and rude questionings, the abandonment of the dream and
the stern corrections of truth? He knew not what to think. A voice of
reproach asked him if he also had not forgotten. The figure of little
Lois Boriskoff stood by him in the shadows, and he feared to speak with
her lest she should accuse him.

Let it be said in justice that he had written to Lois twice, and heard
but lately that she had left Union Street and gone, none knew whither.
His determination to do his utmost for her and her father, to bid them
share his prosperity and command him as they would, had been strong with
him from the first and delayed only by the amazing circumstances of his
inheritance. He did not understand even yet that he had the right to
remain at "Five Gables," but this right had so often been insisted upon
that he began at last to believe in its reality and to accept the
situation as a _chose jugee_. And with the conviction, there came an
intense longing to revisit the old scenes--who knows, it may have been
but the promptings of a vanity after all.

It was a great thing, indeed, to be walking there in the glare of the
lamps and telling himself that fortune and a future awaited him, that
the instrument of mighty deeds would be his inheritance, and that the
years of his poverty were no more. How cringingly he had walked
sometimes in the old days when want had shamed him and wealth looked
down upon him with contempt. To-night he might stare the boldest in the
face, nurse fabulous desires and know that they would be gratified, peer
through the barred windows of the shops and say all he saw was at his
command. A sense of might and victory attended his steps. He understood
what men mean when they say that money is power and that it rules the
wo