Banked and covered as it was in the ashes of the
after years, there was the old living spark of humanity in David
Drennen. Ygerne Bellaire came in time to fan it into a warming glow.
The fire which should come from it should be her affair. It would
cheer with its warmth; or it should devastate with its flames. The
spark, fanned into love's fire, had in an instant sent its flickering
light throughout the darker places of a man's being.

A woman, accomplishing that which Ygerne Bellaire had done, is
sometimes not unlike a child scattering coals in a dry forestland. The
forest, the child itself, may be consumed.

Men who had not called him Drennen the Unlucky had named him Headlong
Drennen. His is that type which, in another environment and taking the
gamble of life from another angle, is termed a plunger. There was no
room for half-heartedness in so positive a nature. Where he loved he
worshipped. He had had an idol once before, his father. Now, after
half a score of years, he made himself another idol. And it, in turn,
made of him another man.

Worship must be unquestioning. It is builded upon utter faith. So
Drennen, his slow words spoken to Ygerne, his love for her freed, as it
were, from any restraint he had hitherto tried to put upon it, his
whole being given over to it, came without question to believe in her.
She was the woman meant to be his mate and he had called to her and she
had come to him. His moment of doubt had fled with his declaration.
Otherwise he would have been the paler personality which it was not in
him to be, half-hearted. Of her passion and pride he made character.
From the look which he had seen in her eyes he made tenderness and
truth. Every attribute of that ideal which is somewhere in the heart
of every man, until at last the one woman comes to occupy its place
more sweetly and warmly and intimately, he brought forth from its dark
recess to bestow upon Ygerne.

All night he did not sleep. The sun, rising, found him quite another
man than that upon which it had set last night. In men like Drennen a
few hours and a strong emotion can accomplish results which in other
men would require the passing of years. And the same rising sun showed
a new world to the eyes opened eagerly to see it, displayed a fresh
universe to a heart starved for it. He had sought to see only the
shadows yesterday; now he looked for the light and it was everywhere.
It lay quivering upon the mountain