ught of Chiquita, he heard the murmur of forests
and waters and saw the broad expanse of the plains and the wild crags
and peaks that rear their heads heavenward, above which the eagles soar.
Nature beckoned with widespread arms to her child to come--the manhood
within him cried for release, for the recognition of the individual's
right to self-assertion.

Poets have sung of the raptures of first love, but was Blanch really his
first love? The true first love is only that man or woman who can cause
one to forget oneself. Somewhere deep down in our souls there's a
something which sleeps until that hour when it suddenly bursts into
flame, as it were, and the new man is born within us; and this is what
had happened to him, though all unknown to himself, at the time when he
first beheld Chiquita riding alone in the hills. In an instant his soul
was aflame. He thrilled at the sight of her as she turned and rode away
in the dusk, and felt like crying out to her to stop; that she was his,
that she had been his from the beginning of time and he likewise hers;
that he had been searching for her down the ages and had found her at
last. All this and much more flashed through his mind as he gazed upon
the beautiful vision of Blanch before him and felt the charm of her
presence slowly creeping over him and fastening itself upon him in spite
of his resistance like the subtle, mysterious influence of music or rich
old wine.

For some time he seemed uncertain how to act or what to say. She noted
it. His hesitation inspired her with fresh courage, causing her face and
eyes to shine with the radiance of hope, dazzlingly beautiful. Her
breath came quick and fast as she drew nearer to him and then seemed to
cease altogether as she waited for his answer. All this he too noticed,
and felt himself weakening under her spell. The suspense was as terrible
for him as for her. A thousand memories rose from out the past and began
pulling at his heart-strings. Inch by inch he felt himself slowly
slipping back into the old life again, like a boat that has slipped her
moorings and glides silently and almost imperceptibly out into the
easy-flowing current. The struggle grew more intense within him as the
minutes passed. Great beads of perspiration broke out upon his brow as
he listened to those voices whose sweetness and intensity increased with
his hesitancy--those voices beneath whose charm and spell the strongest
men have succumbed in the past.