What an amazing miracle it was--what a glad, transforming touch of magic! He laughed in delight! Years slipped from him, and his youth surged up in all its warmth and eagerness. Why, he was a boy again! A boy at the threshold of life's wonderland. He was looking open-eyed into a garden of beauty where his foot had never trod. Mystic realms were there, mazes of fairy dreams, lights and colors he had never seen. At last the place of his desire was before him. This other self, this woman, Lucy Webster,--the name brought with it an arresting chill that fell upon the fever of his passion with the breath of a glacier. The girl was a Webster! She was of the blood of those he scorned and hated; of a kin with an ancestry he had been brought up to loathe with all his soul. Had he not been taught that it was his mission to thwart and humble them? Had he not continually striven to do so? He must have been bewitched to have forgotten the fact for an instant. No doubt this creature with her rare beauty was a decoy brought hither to tempt him to betray his heritage. Ellen Webster was quite capable of formulating such a scheme and setting it in motion, if only for the cruel pleasure of seeing him ensnared in its toils. Perhaps even Lucy herself was an accomplice in the plot. Who could tell? To be sure she appeared artless enough; but what Webster was to be trusted? And were she only the innocent tool of a more designing hand it redeemed her but little for, blameless or guilty, she was nevertheless a Webster. No power under heaven could wipe out her inheritance; for the penalty of her blood she must pay the price. Ah, how near he had come to playing the fool! Was it not Delilah who had shorn Samson of his might? He, Martin Howe, to be false to his traditions, forfeit his pride, and become a spiritless weakling, forgetting his manhood in the smile of a woman! "Bah!" He cried the word aloud into the teeth of the gale. To think he had almost walked blindfolded into the trap Ellen Webster had baited for him! Ah, she should see he was not to be enticed away from the stronghold of his principles by any such alluring snare. What a sly old schemer Ellen was! She would have liked nothing better than to behold him on his knees at the feet of this niece of hers and then wreck his hopes by snatching away every possibility of their fulfillment. Perhaps she expected that with the girl's beauty as a bribe she could make him forget his dignity to the extent of rebuilding the wall. She was mistaken! He was not to be thus cajoled. He had already, to some extent, betrayed his vows that night by befriending Lucy. Bitterly he repented of his weakness. Doubtless at this very moment Ellen Webster was exulting that he had so easily been duped and hoodwinked.