What matter that the thought of Vesta stabbed him nigh to madness when he looked on hearth-fires that could never blaze for him?
With courage almost more than human he put that fond ambition out of mind as if it were another sword he'd learned to sheathe.

At first it would not stay in hiding, but flew the scabbard of his will to thrust him sore as often as he put it from him.

But after awhile he found a way to bind it fast, and when he'd found that way it gave him victory over all.
A little child came crying towards him in the market-place, its world a waste of woe because the toy it cherished had been broken in its play.
Aldebaran would have turned aside on yesterday to press the barbed thought still deeper in his heart that he had been denied the joy of fatherhood.

But now he stooped as gently as if he were the child's own sire to wipe its tears and soothe its sobs.

And when with skilful fingers he restored the toy, the child bestowed on him a warm caress out of its boundless store.
He passed on with his pulses strangely stirred.