"we could sell this big house and go back
to the farmhouse to live. We used to be so happy there."

He turned abruptly, and fixed upon her a steadfast, searching stare that
held, nevertheless, a strange tenderness in it.

"You don't care for all this, do you, Victoria?" he demanded, waving his
stick to indicate the domain of Fairview.

She laughed gently, and raised her eyes to the green roof of the
needles.

"If we could only keep the pine grove!" she sighed. "Do you remember
what good times we had in the farmhouse, when you and I used to go off
for whole days together?"

"Yes," said Mr. Flint, "yes."

"We don't do that any more," said Victoria. "It's only a little drive
and a walk, now and then. And they seem to be growing--scarcer."

Mr. Flint moved uneasily, and made an attempt to clear his voice.

"I know it," he said, and further speech seemingly failed him. Victoria
had the greater courage of the two.

"Why don't we?" she asked.

"I've often thought of it," he replied, still seeking his words with
difficulty. "I find myself with more to do every year, Victoria, instead
of less."

"Then why don't you give it up?"

"Why?" he asked, "why? Sometimes I wish with my whole soul I could give
it up. I've always said that you had more sense than most women, but
even you could not understand."

"I could understand," said Victoria.

He threw at her another glance,--a ring in her words proclaimed their
truth in spite of his determined doubt. In her eyes--had he but known
it!--was a wisdom that exceeded his.

"You don't realize what you're saying," he exclaimed; "I can't leave the
helm."

"Isn't it," she said, "rather the power that is so hard to relinquish?"

The feelings of Augustus Flint when he heard this question were of
a complex nature. It was the second time that day he had been
shocked,--the first being when Hilary Vane had unexpectedly defended his
son. The word Victoria had used, power, had touched him on the quick.
What had she meant by it? Had she been his wife and not his daughter, he
would have flown into a rage. Augustus Flint was not a man given to the
psychological amusement of self-examination; he had never analyzed his
motives. He had had little to do with women, except Victoria. The Rose
of Sharon knew him as the fountainhead from which authority and money
flowed, but Victoria, since her childhood, had been his refuge from
care, and in the haven of her companionship he had lost himse