He smoked his pipe furiously, perplexed and uneasy.

One moment the face was Ernestine's, the next it was Monty's little girl laughing up at him from the worn and yellow tin-type.

The promise of the one--had it been fulfilled in the woman?
At least he knew that here was the one great weakness of his life.

The curious flood of sentiment, which had led him to gamble for the child's picture, had merged with equal suddenness into passion at the coming of her later presentment.

High above all his plans for the accumulation of power and wealth, he set before him now a desire which had become the moving impulse of his life--a desire primitive but overmastering--the desire of a strong man for the woman he loves.