He was thinking of his triumph, and of all that he had gone through to win it, and of all that it would bring him.

He held the trump cards now, and the game lay in his own hand.

He had triumphed, and yet over him hung the shadow of that curse which dogs the presence of our accomplished desires.

Too often, even with the innocent, does the seed of our destruction lurk in the rich blossom of our hopes, and much more is this so with the guilty.

Somehow this thought was present with him to-night, and in a rough half-educated way he grasped its truth.