Imagine you had a choice between living an ordinary life for your actuarial life span or a very different kind of life. Instead, suppose you had the alternative of living a life in pursuit of an extraordinary love, of acquiring a vast fortune and of achieving your life's dream, but a life that was much shorter. Which life would you choose? Of course, we are never given a choice, but sometimes a few of us are by chance given the other life. This is the story of a man who led such a life and of the woman who loved him.