Again he was playing for a great stake, and playing, this time, more or less in the dark....
His mind and memory swung back, in spite of himself, to his late wife.
Milly Fauncey had liked him almost from the first day they had met.

It had been like the attraction--but of course that was the very last simile that would have occurred to Varick himself--of a rabbit for a cobra.

He had had but to look at the self-absorbed, shy, diffident human being, to fascinate and draw her to himself.

The task would have been almost too easy, but for the dominant personality of poor Milly's companion, Julia Pigchalke.

She had fought against him, tooth and claw; but, cunning old Dame Nature had been on his side in the fight, and, of course, Nature had won.
Miss Pigchalke had always made the fatal mistake of keeping her ex-pupil too much to herself.