“Perhaps the change has been in you, Virginia,” he said. “My feeling toward you remains the same—”
“I do not mean that.”
“What is the change you think you see?” he asked curiously. “You are less kind, for one thing.”
“Nonsense, Virginia! You don't mean that. Whatever I can do, whatever I have is yours! You know this—and you have asked so little where you might have asked so much; I would have lifted every burden!”
“You could not; they were a part of my life,” she said quietly. But after she had gone, he fell to wondering if he had changed.
Not quite a year had elapsed since he had bought the land of her, and yet he was finding that his business sense, his inherited taste for a good bargain, was enabling him to invest the proceeds of his fraud to the utmost advantage. He did not seek to justify or excuse himself; his moral perceptions were not weakened in the least; but he was conscious that a hardening process was going on in his own nature. He was less kind—as she had said—more willing to seize on an advantage; less under the influence of his generous impulses.
Stephen heard again from Gibbs, and what the general had to offer became the deciding influence that took him West.
He parted from Virginia regretfully enough, since he was aware that his return to Benson must be uncertain, and he was depressed by this conviction. It was true she was not entirely alone, she had Jane and Harriett, but he felt that in spite of love and gratitude, he had failed miserably in his relation to her.
Yet his spirits rose as he travelled West through the autumn landscape; he seemed to be leaving disappointment, failure, behind; and a larger hope than he had known came to him as the horizon lifted and widened.
They reached Kansas City, where following Gibbs's instruction they lodged at the small hotel from which departed the tri-weekly stage for Grant City. Taking the Saturday's stage they journeyed south and west.