This woman, strange and unusual as it may seem, was absolutely the first whose glance or voice had ever stirred his blood.

His passion for her had grown slowly; for years it had been growing, ever since the grey-eyed girl on the brink of womanhood had conducted him to his castle home.

It was no fancy, no light desire to pass with the year which brought it.

Owen had little imagination, that soil from which loves spring with the rank swiftness of a tropic bloom to fade at the first chill breath of change.

His passion was an unalterable fact.