lip
from the leash.

As she looked there was a sound as if heaven were ripped asunder,
and the forked lightning hurled itself from that dark rampart in the
southwest and went zig-zagging against the pane. "Only ten seconds,"
said the Colonel; "the storm is bursting right over our heads."

Frida too had consulted her watch; she turned suddenly, rang the
bell, and gave orders to a trembling footman. "Tell Randall to put
Polly in the dogcart. He must drive to the station at once."

The answer came back from the stables that Randall had shut himself
into the loose box and covered himself with straw, "to keep the
lightning off of him. He dursn't go near a steel bit, not if it was
to save his life, m'm, and as for driving to the station----"

It was too true; Randall, horse-breaker, groom and coachman,
excellent, invaluable creature at all other times, was a brainless
coward in a thunderstorm.

"If we don't go to-day, we can't go till to-morrow," said Georgie
Chatterton, and she nodded at Durant to remind him that in that case
his departure would be postponed till Thursday.

Frida too turned toward him. "If I don't go to-day, I shall never
go."

He understood. She was afraid, afraid of what might come between her
and her deliverance, afraid of her fate, afraid of the conscience
that was her will, afraid of her own fear, of the terror that would
come upon her when she realized the full meaning of her lust for
life. To-morrow any or all of those things might turn her from the
way; to-day she was strong; she held her life in her two hands. At
any rate, she was not afraid of the weather. She would go straight
to her end, through rain and lightning and thunderbolts and all the
blue and yellow demons of the sky.

"Are you afraid, Georgie?"

"Of thunder and lightning?" asked Georgie pointedly. "No."

"All right, then. We've got forty-five minutes. I must put Polly
into the cart myself. Five for that; forty to get to the station."

She strode off to the stables, followed by the footman and Durant.
Among them they forced Polly into the trap, and led her dancing to
the porch, where Miss Chatterton stood, prepared for all weathers.

"I say," cried she, "this is all very well; but who's going to drive
Polly there and back again?"

"I am," said Durant calmly. He had caught a furtive flash from
Frida's eyes that lighted upon, glanced off him and fell to the
ground. The woman in her had appealed to his chivalry. At the same