For the first time in his life he had looked into the eyes of a woman who loved him, and he had discovered to his utter surprise that he loved her.

There had been no plan; no prudent outlook into her nature and feelings; no cautious insight into his own.

He had taken part in a most unpremeditated act of pure and simple love; and that it was real and pure love on each side, he no more doubted than he doubted that he lived.

And yet, had he been an impostor when, on that hill over there, he told Roberta March he loved her?
No, he had been honest, he had loved her; and, since the time that he had been roused to action by the discovery of Junius Keswick's intentions to renew his suit, it had been a love full of a rare and alluring beauty.

But its charm, its fascination, its very existence, had disappeared in the first flash of his knowledge that Annie Peyton loved him.