Alban Revisits Union Street

And now reality had come with its sacrilegious hand, warring upon the vision and bidding him open his eyes and see. It was easy enough to estimate this adventurer Willy Forrest at his true worth, less easy to bind the wounds imagination had received and to set the image once more upon its ancient pedestal. Could he longer credit Anna with those qualities with which his veneration had endowed her? Must there not be heart searchings and rude questionings, the abandonment of the dream and the stern corrections of truth? He knew not what to think. A voice of reproach asked him if he also had not forgotten. The figure of little Lois Boriskoff stood by him in the shadows, and he feared to speak with her lest she should accuse him.

Let it be said in justice that he had written to Lois twice, and heard but lately that she had left Union Street and gone, none knew whither. His determination to do his utmost for her and her father, to bid them share his prosperity and command him as they would, had been strong with him from the first and delayed only by the amazing circumstances of his inheritance. He did not understand even yet that he had the right to remain at "Five Gables," but this right had so often been insisted upon that he began at last to believe in its reality and to accept the situation as a chose jugée. And with the conviction, there came an intense longing to revisit the old scenes--who knows, it may have been but the promptings of a vanity after all.