streets of the town.

Hours passed, and still she sat wide-eyed at her window. It was not
till raucous old muzzains of roosters raised from the watch-towers of
their various coops their concatenated prophecy of the dawn, that she
saw the machine return with its single passenger. The next morning, as
soon as she saw Blake's man stirring about his work, she slipped out
to her stable. Watching her chance, she got a glimpse of Blake's
speedometer. Then she quickly slipped back to her room and sat there
in excited thought.

The evening before the mileage had read 1437; this morning the reading
was 1459. Blake, in his furtive midnight journey, had travelled
twenty-two miles. If he had slipped forth to meet a secret ally, then
evidently their place of meeting was half of twenty-two miles distant.
Where was this rendezvous?

Almost instantly she thought of The Sycamores. That fitted the
requirements exactly. It was eleven miles distant--Blake had a cabin
there--the place was deserted at this season of the year. Nothing
could be safer than for two men, coming in different vehicles, from
different points perhaps, to meet at that retired spot at such an
eyeless hour.

Perhaps there was no confederate. Perhaps Blake's night trip was
not to a secret conference. Perhaps The Sycamores was not the
rendezvous. But there was a chance that all three of these conjectures
were correct. And if so, there was a chance,--aye, more, a
probability--that there would be further midnight trysts.

Bruce had fallen into the habit of dropping in occasionally for a few
minutes at the end of an evening's speaking to tell Katherine how
matters seemed to be progressing. When he called that night toward
ten he was surprised to be directed around to the summer-house. His
surprise was all the more because the three months' drought had that
afternoon been broken, and the rain was now driving down in gusts and
there was a far rumbling of thunder that threatened a nearer and a
fiercer cannonading.

Crouching beneath his umbrella, he made his way through the blackness
to the summer-house, in which he saw sitting a dim, solitary figure.

"In mercy's name, what are you doing out here?" he demanded as he
entered.

"Watching the rain. I love to be out in a storm." Every clap of
thunder sent a shiver through her.

"You must go right into the house!" he commanded. "You'll get wet.
I'll bet you're soaked already!"

"Oh, no. I have a raincoat on," she ans