But usually he dominated her; there was a depth to his passion that achieved patience, the calmness of unassailable fortitude.  She gazed at him often with a surprise that bordered on fear; again she would delight in his mastery, beg him to hold her forever safe against the past.  He reassured her of his ability and determination to accomplish that; there was not the shadow of a doubt in his own mind.  He was more troubled now than formerly; but he was eager for the climax to pass, impatient to claim his own.

As if a dam had been again thrown across the flood of his emotions he felt them mounting, growing more and more irrepressible.  He slept in feverish snatches, with gaps in which he stared wide-eyed into the dark, trying to realize his coming joy, visualizing Ludowika, a brilliant apparition of flowing silk, on the night.  He thought of the store house at the Furnace, of the rain beating on the roof, and Ludowika ...  God, if that old man would only return, go, leave them!  The clouds vanished and left the nights emerald clear, the constellations glittered in frosty immensities of silence.  He stood at the open window with his shoulders bare, revelling in the cold air that flowed over him, defying winter, death itself.  The moon waned immutably.

David was now at Shadrach Furnace, living with the Heydricks, and the necessities that brought him to Myrtle Forge were endless.  He was absolutely happy, and Howat watched him with mingled longing and envy.  His affair, darker, more tragic in spite of a consummation that must be joyous, seemed infinitely more mature.  Caroline was a nice enough girl, but Ludowika was supremely fascinating.  David amused him: 

“Caroline is a miracle.  Of course there are prettier, and Mrs. Winscombe has more air; but none has Caroline’s charming manner.  Of course, you have noticed it.  Even a thick-headed brother couldn’t miss that.  We have plans for you, too.  And it’s no good your looking glum; we’ll glum you.”

The amusement faded from Howat’s countenance, and he listened sullenly to the end of the raillery.  His temper was growing daily more uneven, the delight had largely left his reflections.  His passion had become too insistent for happy conjecturing; the visions of Ludowika now only tormented him.  Her eyes were like burning sapphires, her warm palms caressed his face; he was increasingly gaunt and shadowed.  Once he gave a note for her to the Italian servant, loathing the hand that adroitly covered the folded sheet, the other’s oblique smile; but she sent back word that she was suffering from a headache.  He began to plan so that he would intercept her in unexpected places.  She, too, was passionate in her admissions; but, somehow, some one always stumbled toward them, or they were summoned from beyond.  He began to feel that this was not mere chance, but desired, deliberately courted, by Ludowika.  Very well, he would end it all, as it were, with a shout when Felix Winscombe came back.