Some old thought was stealing into his brain, perhaps, fresh and warm, like a soft spring air,--some hope of the future, in which this child-woman came close to him, and near.

It was an idle dream, only would taunt him when it was over, but he opened his arms to it: it was an old friend; it had made him once a purer and better man than he could ever be again.

A warm, happy dream, whatever it may have been: the rugged, sinister face grew calm and sad, as the faces of the dead change when loving tears fall on them.
He sighed wearily: the homely little hope was fanning into life stagnant depths of desire and purpose, stirring his resolute ambition.
Too late?
Was it too late?
Living or dead she was his, though he should never see her face, by some subtile power that had made them one, he knew not when nor how.

He did not reason now,--abandoned himself, as morbid men only do, to this delirious hope of a home, and cheerful warmth, and this woman's love fresh and eternal: a pleasant dream at first, to be put away at pleasure.

But it grew bolder, touched under-deeps in his nature of longing and intense passion; all that he knew or felt of power or will, of craving effort, of success in the world, drifted into this dream, and became one with it.