ock, and said that Virginia had gone
out for the day. She was, however, to give him this note if he called.

Rupert took the paper and turned away. He would find her at some
neighbor's. He carefully broke the envelope and read:

_Dear Mr. Ames_:

As I have accepted a position to teach in another state, I shall
have to leave Willowby tomorrow. I shall be too busy to see you, and
you have too much good sense to follow me. Forget the past. With
kindest regards, I am, _Virginia Wilton_.

* * * * *

Nina was married on the first of the year. Widow Ames died about two
weeks after.

And so life's shifting scenes came fast to Rupert Ames; and they were
mostly scenes of dreariness and trial; but he did not altogether give
up. Many of his friends were his friends still, and he could have
drowned his sorrow in the social whirl; but he preferred to sit at home
during the long winter evenings, beside his fire and shaded lamp, and
forget himself in his books. He seemed to be drifting away from his
former life, into a strange world of his own. He lost all interest in
his surroundings. To him, the world was getting empty and barren and
cold.

The former beautiful valley was a prison. The hills in which his boyhood
had been spent lost all their loveliness. How foolish, anyway, he began
to think, to always live in a narrow valley, and never know anything of
the broad world without. Surely the soul will grow small in such
conditions.

Early that spring, Rupert packed his possessions in a bundle which he
tied behind the saddle on his horse and bade good-bye to his friends.

"Where are you going, Rupe?" they asked.

But his answer was always, "I don't know."

VIII.

"No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous:
nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them that are exercised
thereby."--_Heb. 12:11_.

Rupert Ames had ridden all day, resting only at noon to permit his horse
to graze. As for himself, he was not tired. The long pent-up energy had
begun to escape, and it seemed that he could have ridden, or walked, or
in any way worked hard for a long time without need of rest. Move, move
he must. He had been dormant long enough; thinking, thinking, nothing
but that for months. It would have driven him mad had he not made a
change. Where was he going? No one knew; Rupert himself did not know;
anywher