nd. At the bottom of the mystery there must
be inspiration for a glowing line, and with pen ready poised over the
violet fluid of romance, it was disheartening to have the solution elude
him. He proposed clues as a poet tests rhymes. There was vendetta. There
was blighted passion. But he ruefully discarded both. Either would be
marked by violent growth, while this thing that touched the Storm Centre
formed as slowly as the gravity of wisdom. But what baffled most was
that Driscoll himself was completely oblivious. If _he_ knew
nothing of the effect, how then could one ask him about the cause?

Daniel, however, overlooked the fact that a malady may break out
variously, according to temperament. As an instance Daniel's patient
would lose himself in reverie, long and deep and mellowing. Now he was
riding with a girl whose gray eyes were upon him in that pensive way she
had; or rather, in the pensive way of a girl who finds herself in love,
and wondering at it, seeks to learn the reason through a grave scrutiny
of the object. It seemed very good to be riding with her again like
that, for there was a soothing sense of companionship, of dear
camaraderie that needed no words, but only that expression of her mouth
and a pair of gray eyes. The day dream, while it lasted, had nothing of
bitterness, but lulled his soul instead, and when it passed, he would be
left with thankfulness for his moment of fleeting bliss and ineffable
comfort. Or again, he awoke to reality with a longing that fiercely
would not be denied. "Oh, I want--Jack'leen!" Often and often the
imperious smothered cry all but passed his lips. And then he would shake
himself, as out of physical slumber, and he would take up his life
again. But he would be a shade deeper in the devil's own mood, of
gentleness and a smile.

After Cuernavaca Driscoll had brooded somewhat, yet rather as a boy
whose melancholy is callow and easily fades. But during that evening in
Boone's cabin, he had changed to a man, for it was then he came to know
the meaning of possession, and in the same moment he learned the meaning
of loss. A dull and indefinable resentment thereafter grew on him. But
against whom? Against no one, perhaps. Yet he had had a vision of his
life's dearest happiness, and it was gone, that vision, beyond recall.

Ignorant as he was of Jacqueline's mission, Driscoll had but one
explanation. A man had been born a prince, and a prince dazzles a woman.
Yet the rankling in