"It might be, of course, that it is because he is a fugitive from the law.

A man under such circumstances could easily convince himself that no good woman would permit herself to love him, and he would therefore, in reasonable self-defense, prevent himself from loving her if he could." But surely Brian Kent had every reason to know that Betty Jo did not at all regard him as a criminal.

Betty Jo, as Auntie Sue, recognized only the re-created Brian Kent.

If that were all, they need only wait for the restitution which was so sure to come through his book.

And Brian Kent himself, through Auntie Sue's teaching and through his work, had come to recognize only his real self, and not the creature of circumstances which the river had brought to the little log house.