nd 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