crying aloud that to feel once more that sense of power which
had exalted him above mere mortals, and given him an ecstasy of spirit
that no other passion could ever excite, he would sacrifice everything,
everything!

He paused abruptly and looked about him. He was half-way up the
mountain. The great valley, that looked as if it might embrace the State
itself, lay before him. North and south the scenery was magnificent,
ethereal in the distance, melting everywhere into one of those lovely
mists that seem to have extracted the spiritual essence of all the
colors. But the very beauty of his new domain added to the sense of
unreality, of uneasiness, that had so often possessed him since he had
crossed the borders of the State. And it was all on such a colossal
scale. There could never be anything friendly, anything possessing, in a
land destined for a race of primeval giants. He felt so passionate a
longing for the sweet embracing historied landscapes of England that the
very violence of the nostalgia drove him homeward with the half-formed
intention of taking the first train for New York and the first steamer
out of it. Moreover, he was suddenly obsessed with the belief that if he
had greatness in him England alone held its magnet.

But it was a long walk to his house, and he reached it late in the
afternoon, very tired and very hungry. When he entered his comfortable
living-room, redolent of flowers, he received something like a shock of
peace, and after he had taken a cold bath, he cursed himself roundly for
permitting the mixed blood in his veins to contrive at times the
temperament of an artist or of some women. As he sat down to a more than
palatable supper, he felt thankful that he had had it out with himself
so early in the engagement, and thought it odd if the Anglo-Saxon in him
could not drive rough-shod over his weaker outcroppings.

VIII

He did not see Isabel again for three weeks. Several days after his
arrival he received a note from her, briefly stating that she was
starting for Los Angeles to exhibit her prize Favarolles and Leghorns at
a "Chicken show," and after that would pay a long deferred visit to her
sister. "But I shall not be long," she added, possibly with a flicker of
contrition, "only they have been planning things for me for ages and I
am always putting them off. I will spend a week--not with them, exactly,
but at their disposal, and it will be a relief to have it over."

Gwynne f