"Splendid?" he echoed, looking at her with grave, questioning eyes.
"Why, yes, of course!" she returned. "Aren't you glad to be so dead,
under the circumstances? Think what it means! You are free, now. No
horrid old detectives dogging your steps, or waiting behind every bush
and tree to pounce upon you. There is nothing, now, to prevent your
being the kind of man that you always meant to be,--and really ARE,
too,--except for your--your accidental tumble in the river," she
finished with her low chuckling laugh. "And, some day," she went on,
with conviction, "when you have established yourself,--when you have
asserted your REAL self, I mean,--and have paid back every penny of the
money, Homer T. Ward and Mr. Ross and everybody will be glad that they
didn't catch you before you had a chance to save yourself."
"And you, Auntie Sue?" Brian's voice was deep with feeling: "And you?"
"Me? Oh, I am as glad, now, as I can ever be, because, you see, to me it
is already done."
For a long minute he looked at her without speaking, then turned his
face away to gaze out over the river and the hills; but his eyes were
the eyes of one who looks without seeing.
Slowly, he said: "I wish I could be sure. There was a time when I
was--when I believed in myself. It seems to me, now, that it was years
and years ago. I thought, then, that nothing could shake me in my
purpose; that nothing could check me in my ambition.
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