accomplished. That done, Peter could play politics to his heart's
content. Meantime, it was more desirable than ever to tell him of these
unexpected developments and deter him from taking any step which might
complicate the game....
A loud thunderclap crashed across the train of his thought. Another and
a worse one crowded close upon it. He glanced up through the trees into
the inky cavern of the skies, and a single large drop of water spattered
upon his upturned forehead.
"Hang it!" he thought disgustedly. "Here comes the rain."
It came as though at his word, and with unbelievable suddenness. Thunder
rolled; the breeze stiffened into a gale. Another drop fell upon his
hat, and then another, and another. The young man came to an unwilling
halt.
But he immediately saw that further pursuit was, for the moment at
least, out of the question. The storm broke with a violence strangely at
variance with the calm of the earlier evening. The heavens opened and
the floods descended. Shelter was to be found at once, if at all, but as
he hesitated, he remembered suddenly that he had not passed a house in
five minutes. In the same moment his eye fell upon a little cottage just
ahead of him, unlighted and barely perceptible in the thick darkness,
standing off the road not a hundred feet away. He made for it through
the driving rain and wind, stepped upon the narrow porch, discovered
immediately that it gave him no protection at all, and knocked loudly
upon the shut door. He got no answer. Trying it with a wet hand he
perceived that it was unlocked; and without more ado, he opened it and
stepped inside.
It was evidently, as he had surmised, an empty house. The hall was dark
and very quiet. He leaned against the closed front door and dipped into
his pockets for a match. Behind him the rain fell in torrents, and the
turbulent wind dashed after it and hurled it against the streaming
windows. It had turned in half an hour from a peaceful evening to a wild
night, a night when all men of good sense and good fortune should be
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