He saw her profile, her lips parted, her look far away, She inclined her
head.

"Yes," said her cousin, "so do I remember him. He has crossed my path
many times since, Virginia. And mark what I say--it was he whom you had
in mind on that birthday when you implored me to make something of
myself, It was Stephen Brice."

Her eyes flashed upon him quickly.

"Oh, how dare you?" she cried.

"I dare anything, Virginia," he answered quietly. "I am not blaming you.
And I am sure that you did not realize that he was the ideal which you
had in mind."

The impression of him has never left it. Fate is in it. Again, that night
at the Brinsmades', when we were in fancy dress, I felt that I had lost
you when I got back. He had been there when I was away, and gone again.
And--and--you never told me."

"It was a horrible mistake, Max," she faltered. "I was waiting for you
down the road, and stopped his horse instead. It--it was nothing--"

"It was fate, Jinny. In that half-hour I lost you. How I hated that man,"
he cried, "how I hated him?"

"Hated!" exclaimed Virginia, involuntarily. "Oh, no!"