The Leighton house was a big dark pile at the end of the street and the only light visible was in the back room where Patricia knew the struggle against death and disease was being fought out. She paused for a long look and then she ran lightly up the steps and put a shrinking finger on the bell.

It seemed an eternity till the door was grudgingly opened and a white-faced, gruff boy asked unrecognizingly what she wanted.

Patricia put her questions tremblingly, for she feared the stern, strange face of the boy in knickerbockers. She had seen him playing and shouting in the square on other days, and the change was so great that she felt death alone could have wrought it. But he answered evenly that 'Geraldine was just the same,' and was closing the door when Patricia stopped him. After a hasty parley, on his part, at first stubborn and then yielding, the door closed and Patricia, with beating heart, ran down the steps and hurried to the side of the house where the long windows of the drawing room protruded their iron balconies over the sidewalk.

Here she waited in the shadow of the fluttering violet arc light, with her eyes fastened to the silent, insensible windows. Ten minutes that seemed ten eternities went lagging by. Tears of disappointment rose to Patricia's eyes and she shivered as the gusts of west wind flung the drops from the saturated trees in a silver shower across the darkened panes.

"I'll count ten, and then I'll go," she said to herself.

The windows remained dark, and the only sounds on the quiet side street were the wind in the wet trees and the sizzle of the arc light above her head.

"Five, six, sev----"

She sprang forward as the second window slowly moved and a m.u.f.fled figure stood on the balcony.

"Oh, Doris!" was all she found to say, as she stretched eager hands toward her.

Doris shrank back with a low, horrified cry.

"Don't come near me!" she warned in a stifled voice. "Go back as far as the tree. Don't you know it's scarlet fever? I'll go in at once if you come nearer."

Patricia retreated to the tree, and Doris stood with one hand clutching the cloak and the light strong on her face. She looked more beautiful than ever to Patricia's friendly eyes, and there was a calm strength in her manner that awed while it comforted her. All consciousness of herself was gone, and, Patricia felt, gone forever, and in its place a quiet courage that spoke of conquered pride and vanity and selfishness.

Doris Leighton had found herself.

In the hurried words that they exchanged there was a more solid welding of their renewed friendship than the telephone could have accomplished for them in many interviews, and they parted at the end of the allotted five minutes, each with a growing faith in the mercies of that Providence which had led them to a n.o.bler comradeship.

Patricia, promising to give Doris' messages to Elinor and the rest, hurried off, leaving the drawing-room windows once more blank and impa.s.sive. She ran into the studio as Griffin was rising to go, with her umbrella, reclaimed from the stand, still dripping slow occasional drops unheeded on the polished floor.

They had not missed her, much to her surprise. She felt she had undergone so much, and they were still in the very state she had left them. She blurted out her triumphant account of the new Doris, almost forgetting Geraldine, and to their excited questionings and comments she flashed illuminating replies, making them see the very figure in the m.u.f.fled cloak with the courageous expression on its lovely face.

There was generous and general rejoicing at her account of the brief interview, and a strong feeling that under this happier augury Geraldine must recover. Patricia went to bed feeling that the storm of the afternoon had been a type of her own day, and that for her the stars were serenely shining after the tempest of doubt and estrangement.

"Geraldine won't die," she said fervently to Elinor as she put out the light. "I _know_ she won't die."

And the morning proved her prophecy, for at the first inquiry came the joyful news that the crisis was past and Geraldine already improving.

"Now we can go on our spree with clear minds," said Judith, as they sat down to breakfast in the sunny sitting-room. "It's a perfect day and Rockham will look too sweet for anything."

"What a beautiful description of a spring day in the country by a budding literary light," commented Patricia merrily. "I'm afraid your style is rather going off, Ju! You haven't been consulting that dictionary of yours recently."

Judith merely shrugged and went on with her breakfast, while Bruce and Elinor, who had been up unusually early and were already equipped, discussed Elinor's finished wall-decoration which stood at the far end of the studio, just visible from the breakfast table. Bruce was much elated over the progress of his pupil, and prophesied great things for Elinor in time. He even went so far as to promise that the stained gla.s.s window for which she had made a cartoon should be executed and put in the little Rockham church.

Altogether they were in a happy frame of mind and life seemed very satisfactory to them. As they left the town behind and the dimpling, downy, spring-time country rolled out beyond their flying windows, they became positively hilarious, intoxicated by sunshine and spring. They found Greycroft, Hannah Ann and Henry all equally admirable. The pergola was inspected and found well-composed and attractive, and the site for Patricia's concrete seat was decided on hopefully. The picnic luncheon in the big barn, which Hannah Ann served with great delight while Henry hurried back and forth to the house with warm dishes and reinforcements of delicious food, was a glorious frolic, and even the big black clouds that swept suddenly over the luminous sky did not distress them.

"Let's stay here for a minute or two, and then run up to the house before it comes," suggested Patricia, with her chin on the half door of the barn, looking out over the tender landscape and down at the flowers in the unused barnyard far below.

Hannah Ann and Henry had disappeared with the remains of the feast and the four were alone in the big solid structure, with hay mows on either side of their banqueting floor and a smell of dry, sweet herbage in the air.

Bruce scanned the rushing yellow clouds.

"Better shut the windows there, Miss Pat," he said. "I'll close the doors and then we'll hustle. It's going to be a stunner when it comes."

Patricia had barely clicked the bolts in the gla.s.s upper doors and heard the heavy clash of the wooden contact as Bruce slid the great leaves of the big door into place, when with a swish and sweep the storm broke.

"We can't go now," cried Patricia, throwing her voice above the sound of the wind, but Bruce and Elinor at the other end of the barn were apparently absorbed in the spectacle, and did not hear her. Judith cuddled close and Patricia felt her hands go cold, but she could only clasp them harder to rea.s.sure her--no words could reach her ear.

The wind, driving furiously from the west, flung the clouds before it--great sullen ma.s.ses of flying gray vapor that now broke into drenching torrents, shaking the barn and tearing at the cas.e.m.e.nts. In a moment the place was dark with its roar and the rumble of coming fury undertoned the shrill screams of the greedy tempest wind.

Patricia held Judith close, with her own heart beating tumultuously to the rhythm of the storm. Hard rattling drops castinetted at the gla.s.s, beating an accompaniment to the roar of the racing clouds. For a moment all was black, then, as the whirling cloud ma.s.ses swept apart, the pelting drops lulled and a gray twilight full of ominous murmurs filled the place. Before Patricia could frame the swift thought that the storm was pa.s.sing, darkness swept over them again, and the fierce scream of the relentless wind tore at the corners of the barn. The rain beat, deluged, engulfed the out-of-doors; it drummed gayly with diminishing ferocity; then it roared sullenly, flooding the rain spouts to bursting; it raged again, with the scream of the wind growing higher, and snapping branches flung themselves past the gray squares of the windows, flying leaves pasted wet green blurs on the streaming gla.s.s. Judith shuddered.

"Oh, Patricia!" she cried in Patricia's ear, but the words died into the tempest.

The sound of running water outside their shelter gradually forced its way into the tumult. The road was a yellow waterway; the brook tore above the limit of its deep banks into a widening saffron river among the green meadows, which showed in the ghastly light in crude and ugly colors.

Then, suddenly as it had come, the storm pa.s.sed, trailing dark, yellow-gray, ragged clouds in its wake. The light came back and the awed girls at the little window saw below them in the emerald meadows, wide ugly yellow splotches that grew as they looked, meeting other growing patches of swirling yellow water from the lanes and roads.

Trees showed fresh wounds and ma.s.ses of broken branches clotted the discolored waters of the brook. Birds called excitedly and flew exultantly about in the limpid air. The sun flung gay greens and golds. The storm was past.

Patricia drew a deep breath.

"Look, look!" cried Judith, her eyes alight and her whole slender little figure relaxed. "Two trees are down!"

Across the road a huge sycamore blocked the way and on the pike a giant willow had crashed down.

"Oh, Bruce, the sycamore you painted is gone!" called Patricia, not turning. "Come and see!"

Elinor came, with the painter following, and as soon as they saw the work of the storm, Bruce awoke to immediate action.

"You girls tell Henry to come down with the axe and grubbing-hoe," he commanded briskly. "I'm off." And flinging his coat to Elinor, he seized a hatchet that was lying in the stairway and started for the wreckage, while Patricia and Judith flew to fulfill his orders.

The sun shone and the birds sang while the work went on, and far down the pike they could see other p.r.o.ne trees with busy choppers clearing limbs and entangling foliage from the highway. A band of men begirt with axes, cords and other implements pa.s.sed on their way to the school house where a big maple blocked the pike.

Patricia was tremendously interested and it was with the greatest regret that she heard the whistle of the up-train, while the tangle of the sycamore was still undisturbed in the roadway.

"Oh, do let's stay till it's all done," she urged, but Bruce and Elinor were adamant.

"What does it matter if we do miss the train?" she insisted. "We can take the early one in the morning. We'll be home almost as soon."

"I've got to pack tonight, young lady," Bruce reminded her. "I'm not so fortunate as to be coming to Greycroft, you'll remember. It takes longer to get to Chicago than to Rockham."

"Oh, that's so," acquiesced Patricia. "I suppose you do have to be there for that private view of the panels."

"And a fresh suit is advisable, too," added Bruce. "I don't want my duds to come a week later, as they did in Milwaukee. I'll make sure this time."

"All right," said Patricia, amiably. "We've had a glorious day anyway, and we'll soon be back here for keeps. I guess I'm not pig enough to grumble. Come on, Judy, we've got to go see Hannah Ann's new hat before we go. I wish she'd left us get it for her. I'm sure it's a fright."

Judith followed sedately with her head in the air.

"I'm going to ask Elinor if Hannah Ann and Henry can't come in town Sat.u.r.day for the 'housebreaking,'" she said to Patricia as they climbed the stairs. "I think it would be very nice for them to see all our friends. They're such _urbane dependents_."