his
life and touched the dull routine of his work with the light of
enchantment. If she made him timid before her, she made him bold towards
the rest of the world. 'T was for her that he had had the courage to
take that plunge into the boiling sea of life in an unknown city, and it
was for her that he had had strength to keep above water, where so many
had gone down.

He had faced all for her and had conquered all for her. He recalled the
long struggle, the painful, patient waiting, the stern self-denial. He
had deliberately chosen between pleasure and success,--between the
present and the future. He had denied himself to achieve his fortune,
and he had succeeded.

At first, it had been for her; then Success had become dear to him for
itself, had ever grown larger and dearer as he advanced, until now--A
thrill of pride ran through him, which changed into a shiver as it
brought those accursed, staring, ghastly figures straight before his
eyes.

He had great trouble to drive the figures away. It was only when he
thought fixedly of Catherine Trelane as she used to be that they
disappeared. She was a vision then to banish all else. He had a picture
of her somewhere among his papers. He had not seen it for years, but no
picture could do her justice: as rich as was her coloring, as beautiful
as were her eyes, her mouth, her _riante_ face, her slim, willowy,
girlish figure and fine carriage, it was not these that came to him when
he thought of her; it was rather the spirit of which these were but the
golden shell: it was the smile, the music, the sunshine, the radiance
which came to him and warmed his blood and set his pulses throbbing
across all those years. He would get the picture and look at it.

But memory swept him on.

He had got in the tide of success and the current had borne him away.
First it had been the necessity to succeed; then ambition; then
opportunity to do better and better always taking firmer hold of him and
bearing him further and further until the pressure of business, change
of ambition and, at last, of ideals swept him beyond sight of all he had
known or cared for.

He could almost see the process of the metamorphosis. Year after year he
had waited and worked and Catherine Trelane had waited; then had come a
time when he did not wish her to wait longer. His ideals had changed.
Success had come to mean but one thing for him: gold; he no longer
strove for honors but for riches. He abandoned the t