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."