Page 82 (1/1)

It was this presence of her, and not the thought of escape, that exalted hihtning gave hilimpses of her He felt the touch of her shoulder, her arether The life and warh the hand he held He had dreamed of her And now suddenly she had becoly over all other elory of the thought that it was she who had come to him in the lasthih the crash of storm

At the crest of a low knoll between barracks and Kedsty's bungalow she stopped for the first tiain, the almost irresistible impulse to reach out in the darkness and take her into his ar out to her of his joy, of a happiness that had coreater even than the happiness of freedoue speechless, and he was looking at her when the lightning revealed her again In a rending flash it cut open the night so close that the hiss of it was like the passing of a giant rocket, and involuntarily she shrank against hiht his arm at the instant thunder crashed low over their heads His own hand groped out, and in the blackness it touched for an instant her wet face and then her drenched hair

"Marette," he cried, "where are we going?"

"Down there," came her voice

Her hand had left his arh he could not see Ahead of theloom, a sea of blackness, and in the heart of that sea he saw a light He knew that it was a la herself by that light when she started down the slope with her hand still in his That she had made no effort to withdraw itdiscoe of rain that beat their faces One of her fingers had gripped itself convulsively about his thu And each tihtened, and Kent's soul acclaimed