Bowed low to shield herself against the ever fiercer buffets of the storm, Katherine gave Nelly free rein to pick her own way at her own pace through the blackness. The rain volleyed into her pitilessly, the wind sought furiously to wrest her from the saddle, the lightning cracked open the heavens into ever more fiery chasms, and the thunder rattled and rolled and reverberated as though a thousand battles were waging in the valley. It was as if the earth’s dissolution were at hand—as if the long-gathered wrath of the Judgment Day were rending the earth asunder and hurling the fragments afar into the black abysm of eternity.

But Katherine, though gasping and shivering, gave minor heed to this elemental rage. Whatever terror she might have felt another time at such a storm, her brain had now small room for it. She was exultantly filled with the magnitude of her discovery. The water-works deal! The National Electric & Water Company! Bruce not a bona fide candidate at all, but only a pistol at Blake’s head to make him stand and deliver! Blake and Blind Charlie—those two whole-hearted haters, who belaboured each other so valiantly before the public—in a secret pact to rob that same dear public!

At the highest moments of her exultation it seemed that victory was already hers; that all that remained was to proclaim to Westville on the morrow what she knew. But beneath all her exultation was a dim realization that the victory itself was yet to be won. What she had gained was only a fuller knowledge of who her enemies were, and what were their purposes.

Her mind raced about her discovery, seeking how to use it as the basis of her own campaign. But the moment of an extensive and astounding discovery is not the moment for the evolving of well-calculated plans; so the energies of her mind were spent on extravagant dreams or the leaping play of her jubilation.

One decision, however, she did reach. That was concerning Bruce. Her first impulse was to go to him and tell him all, in triumphant refutation of his ideas concerning woman in general, and her futility in particular. But as she realized that she was not at the end of her fight, but only at a better-informed beginning, she saw that the day of her triumph over him, if ever it was to come, had at least not yet arrived. As for admitting him into her full confidence, her woman’s pride was still too strong for that. It held her to her determination to tell him nothing. She was going to see this thing through without him.

Moreover, she had another reason for silence. She feared, if she told him all, his impetuous nature might prompt him to make a premature disclosure of the information, and that would be disastrous to her future plans. But since he was vitally concerned in Blake’s and Peck’s agreement, it was at least his due that he be warned; and so she decided to tell him, without giving her source of information, that Blind Charlie proposed to sell him out.

Nelly’s pace had slowed into a walk, and even then the gale at times almost swept the poor horse staggering from the road. The rain drove down in ever denser sheets. The occasional flashes of lightning served only to emphasize the blackness. So dense was it, it seemed a solid. The world could not seem blacker to a toad in the heart of a stone. The instants of crackling fire showed Katherine the river, below her in the valley, leaping, surging, almost out of its banks—the trees, writhing and wrestling, here and there one jaggedly discrowned. And once, as she was crossing a little wooden bridge that spanned a creek, she saw that it was almost afloat—and for an instant of terror she wished she had followed the higher back-country road taken by the two automobiles.

She had reached the foot of Red Man’s Ridge, and was winding along the river’s verge, when she thought she heard her name sound faintly through the storm. She stopped Nelly and sat in sudden stiffness, straining her ears. Again the voice sounded, this time nearer, and there was no mistaking her name.

“Miss West! Katherine!”

She sat rigid, almost choking. The next minute a shapeless figure almost collided with Nelly. It eagerly caught the bridle-rein and called out huskily:

“Is that you, Miss West?”

She let out a startled cry.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“It’s you! Thank God, I’ve found you!” cried the voice.

“Arnold Bruce!” she ejaculated.

He loosened the rein and moved to her side and put his hand upon the back of her saddle.

“Thank God I’ve found you!” he repeated, with a strange quaver to his voice.

“Arnold Bruce! What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t you hear me shout after you, when you started, that I was coming, too?”

“I heard your voice, but not what you said.”

“Do you think I would let you go out alone on a night like this?” he demanded in his unstrung tone. “It’s no night for a man to be out, much less a woman!”

“You mean—you followed me?”

“What else did you think I’d do?”

“And on foot?”

“If I had stopped to get a horse I’d have lost your direction. So I ran after you.”

They were moving on now, his hand upon the back of her saddle to link them together in the darkness. He had to lean close to her that their voices might be heard above the storm.

“And you have run after me all this way?”

“Ran and walked. But I couldn’t make much headway in the storm—Calling out to you every few steps. I didn’t know what might have happened to you. All kinds of pictures were in my mind. You might have been thrown and be lying hurt. In the darkness the horse might have wandered off the road and slipped with you into the river. It was—it was——” She felt the strong forearm that lay against her back quiver violently. “Oh, why did you do it!” he burst out.

A strange, warm tingling crept through her.

“I—I——” Something seemed to choke her.

“Oh, why did you do it!” he repeated.

Contrary to her determination of but a little while ago, an impulse surged up in her to tell him all she had just learned, to tell him all her plans. She hung for a moment in indecision. Then her old attitude, her old determination, resumed its sway.

“I had a suspicion that I might learn something about father’s case,” she said.

“It was foolishness!” he cried in fierce reproof, yet with the same unnerved quaver in his voice. “You should have known you could find nothing on such a night as this!”

She felt half an impulse to retort sharply with the truth. But the thought of his stumbling all that way in the blackness subdued her rising impulse to triumph over him. So she made no reply at all.

“You should never have come! If, when you started, you had stopped long enough for me to speak to you, I could have told you you would not have found out anything. You did not, now did you?”

She still kept silent.

“I knew you did not!” he cried in exasperated triumph. “Admit the truth—you know you did not!”

“I did not learn everything I had hoped.”

“Don’t be afraid to acknowledge the truth!”

“You remember what I said when you were first offered the nomination by Mr. Peck—to beware of him?”

“Yes. You were wrong. But let’s not talk about that now!”

“I am certain now that I was right. I have the best of reasons for believing that Mr. Peck intends to sell you out.”

“What reasons?”

She hesitated a moment.

“I cannot give them to you—now. But I tell you I am certain he is planning treachery.”

“Your talk is wild. As wild as your ride out here to-night.”

“But I tell you——”

“Let’s talk no more about it now,” he interrupted, brushing the matter aside. “It—it doesn’t interest me now.”

There was a blinding glare of lightning, then an awful clap of thunder that rattled in wild echoes down the valley.

“Oh, why did you come?” he cried, pressing closer. “Why did you come? It’s enough to kill a woman!”

“Hardly,” said she.

“But you’re wet through,” he protested.

“And so are you.”

“Have my coat.” And he started to slip it off.

“No. One more wet garment won’t make me any drier.”

“Then put it over your head. To keep off this awful beat of the storm. I’ll lead your horse.”

“No, thank you; I’m all right,” she said firmly, putting out a hand and checking his motion to uncoat himself. “You’ve been walking. I’ve been riding. You need it more than I do.” And then she added: “Did I hurt you much?”

“Hurt me?”

“When I struck you with my crop.”

“That? I’d forgotten that.”

“I’m very sorry—if I hurt you.”

“It’s nothing. I wish you’d take my coat. Bend lower down.” And moving forward, he so placed himself that his broad, strong body was a partial shield to her against the gale.

This new concern for her, the like of which he had never before evinced the faintest symptoms, begot in her a strange, tingling, but blurred emotion. They moved on side by side, now without speech, gasping for the very breath that the gale sought to tear away from their lips. The storm was momently gaining power and fury. Afterward the ancient weather-men of Calloway County were to say that in their time they had never seen its like. The lightning split the sky into even more fearsome fiery chasms, and in the moments of wild illumination they could see the road gullied by scores of impromptu rivulets, could glimpse the broad river billowing and raging, the cattle huddling terrified in the pastures, the woods swaying and writhing in deathlike grapple. The wind hurled by them in a thousand moods and tones, all angry; a fine, high shrieking on its topmost note—a hoarse snarl—a lull, as though the straining monster were pausing to catch its breath—then a roaring, sweeping onrush as if bent on irresistible destruction. And on top of this glare, this rage, was the thousandfold crackle, rattle, rumble of the thunder.

At such a time wild beasts, with hostility born in their blood, draw close together. It was a storm to resolve, as it were, all complex shades of human feeling into their elementary colours—when fear and hate and love stand starkly forth, unqualified, unblended. Without being aware that she was observing, Katherine sensed that Bruce’s agitation was mounting with the storm. And as she felt his quivering presence beside her in the furious darkness, her own emotion surged up with a wild and startling strength.

A tree top snapped off just before them with its toy thunder.

“Will this never stop!” gasped Bruce, huskily. “God, I wish I had you safe home!”

The tremulous tensity in his voice set her heart to leaping with an unrestraint yet wilder. But she did not answer.

Suddenly Nelly stumbled in a gully and Katherine pitched forward from the saddle. She would have fallen, had not a pair of strong arms closed about her in mid-air.

“Katherine—Katherine!” Bruce cried, distracted. Nelly righted herself and Katherine regained her seat, but Bruce still kept his arm about her. “Tell me—are you hurt?” he demanded.

She felt the arms around her trembling with intensity.

“No,” she said with a strange choking.

“Oh, Katherine—Katherine!” he burst out. “If you only knew how I love you!”

What she felt could not crystallize itself into words.

“Do you love me?” he asked huskily.

Just then there was a flash of lightning. It showed her his upturned face, appealing, tender, passion-wrought. A wild, exultant thrill swept through her. Without thinking, without speaking, her tingling arm reached out, of its own volition as it were, and closed about his neck, and she bent down and kissed him.

“Katherine!” he breathed hoarsely. “Katherine!” And he crushed her convulsively to him.

She lay thrilled in his arms.... After a minute they moved on, his arm about her waist, her arm about his neck. Rain, wind, thunder were forgotten. Forgotten were their theories of life. For that hour the man and woman in them were supremely happy.