He looked at her with a strange smile; then suddenly his face grew grave and wistful--almost sad, as it seemed to her. "You cannot guess, and I cannot tell you; but believe me that, as I stand here, there is an aching void in my heart, and I do long for something very earnestly." The voice was like music, deep and thrilling; she listened and wondered. "And you should be so happy," she said, almost unconsciously. "Happy!" he echoed, and his dark eyes rested on hers with a strange expression that was half-mocking, half-sad. "Do you know what the poets say?" "'Count no man happy till he dies,' do you mean?" said Stella. "Yes," he said. "I do not think I know what happiness means. I have been pursuing it all my life; sometimes have been within reach of it but it has always evaded me--always slipped from my grasp. Sometimes I have resolved to let it go--to pursue it no longer; but fate has decreed that man shall always be seeking for the unattainable--that he who once looks upon happiness with the eyes of desire, who stretches out his hands toward her, shall pursue her to the end." "And--but surely some get their desire." "Some," he said, "to find that the prize is not worth the race they have run for it; to find that they have wearied of it when it is gained; to find that it is no prize at all, but a delusive blank; all dead sea fruit that turns to dust upon the lips." "Not all; surely not all!" she murmured, strangely moved by his words. "No; not all," he said, with a hidden light in his eyes that she did not see. "To some there comes a moment when they know that happiness--real true happiness--lies just beyond their grasp. And the case of rich men is more to be pitied than all others. What would you say if I told you that it was mine?" She looked up at him with a gentle smile, not on her lips but in her eyes. "I should say that I was very sorry," she murmured. "I should say that you deserved----" she stopped short, smitten by sudden remembrance of all she had heard of him. He filled up the pause with a laugh: a laugh such as she had not heard upon his lips till now. "You were right to stop," he said. "If I get all the happiness I deserve--well, no man will envy me." "Let us go down now," said Stella, gently; "my uncle----" He leapt down, and held up his hand. CHAPTER VIII. Stella put hers into it, but reluctantly, and tried to spring, but her dress caught and she slipped forward. She would have fallen but that he was on the alert to save her. Quite simply and naturally he put his arms round her and lifted her down. Only for a moment he held her in his embrace, her panting form close to his, her face almost resting on his shoulders, but that moment roused the blood in his fiery heart, and her face went pale. "Are you hurt?" he murmured.