to this one hour that has given us to each other. Are you happy?"

"It means--something more than that--this moment----" Priscilla spoke as
if held by a dream.

"You are--content?"

"Yes. That is it. I am--content. I shall never ask for anything more,
anything better. I have everything--the world and--and God, has to give."

"My darling! Now let me tell you. Years ago I came here after a hard
struggle for health. I had never had childhood or boyhood, in the real
sense; but I was well at last! I saw that I was going to have a man's
life, with all that that means, and for months the emotions and cravings,
that generally go to the years of making a child and boy, had been
crowding and pushing me to a sense of having been defrauded, and I meant
to have my turn at last: my joy and pleasure. It seemed just and right to
me that I should taste and revel in all that I had been deprived of. I
had even been deprived of the longing, had not even had the glory of
conquest. I had been such a meaningless creature, I thought I could
afford even to be selfish. I shrank from being _different_--I had been
forced to in the past--but I meant to make up for lost time and take my
place among my fellows.

"One morning, just such a morning as this, I found myself alone--here!
Then I had it out with myself. More distinctly than anything had ever
come to me before I realized that life meant one thing, and one thing
only: the biggest fight or the meanest defeat! I knew that every passion
that burned and flayed me was a warhorse that, if controlled, would carry
me safely through the battle; if succumbed to, would trample me under its