he ever again be that
happy, emotionless being. Within him warred a tumult of new sensations
that seethed, flamed, maddened, consumed. The fact that they were the
fires of a volcano that must forever smolder its passion out did not at
first impress his consciousness. All that he knew was that Lucy Webster
was to him what no other woman had ever been or could be; she was his
ideal, his mate, his other soul; the completing element of his incomplete
nature. The emptiness of his life, of which he had hitherto been only
vaguely aware, now translated itself into the concrete terms of heart,
mind, and sex. He had been struggling to make of himself a whole when in
truth he was but a half; to construct from imperfect parts a unit; and not
sensing the hopelessness of the attempt, he had reaped only failure and
disappointment.

How blind he had been not to understand that alone he could never hope to
still loneliness, heartache, and the stirrings of his physical nature. He
had lived a life in which no one shared and with which no one sympathized.
His fostering instincts had lain dormant until they had reverted to the
receptivity of the protected rather than serving their natural functions
and making of him a protector. All the masculinity of his being had been
dwarfed, stifled. Now it awakened, clamoring to possess, guard, cherish,
worship.

What an amazing miracle it was--what a glad, transforming touch of magic!
He laughed in delight! Years slipped from him, and his youth surged up in
all its warmth and eagerness. Why, he was a boy again! A boy at the
threshold of life's wonderland. He was looking open-eyed into a garden of
beauty where his foot had never trod. Mystic realms were there, mazes of
fairy dreams, lights and colors he had never seen. At last the place of
his desire was before him.

This other self, this woman, Lucy Webster,--the name brought with it an
arresting chill that fell upon the fever of his passion with the breath of
a glacier. The girl was a Webster! She was of the blood of those he
scorned and hated; of a kin with an ancestry he had been brought up to
loathe with all his soul. Had he not been taught that it was his mission
to thwart and humble them? Had he not continually striven to do so? He
must have been bewitched to have forgotten the fact for an instant. No
doubt this creature with her rare beauty was a decoy brought hither to
tempt him to betray his heritage.

Ellen Webster was quite capable of