torn to shreds and the wind-gage hurled into the sky as it registered eighty-two miles an hour.
On the mountains of Colorado and over the plains of Dakota it had begun, a fine, misty rain sweeping eastward, throwing out its soft skirmish-line of breezes, drawn by the summons of the Storm King far out on the waste of the sea. And then the king had blown his frozen breath on the earth and the mighty city had been blotted from the map and its tumult stilled in soft white death.
Ruth drew Gordon to the window against which the sparrows crouched and shivered, that he might watch the storm's wild pranks.
"After all," the wounded man cried, "it has been conquered, the rushing, tumultuous city! Beyond the rim of man's map of the world broods in silence the One to whom its noise is the rustle of a leaf and this wind but a sigh of His breath! What can endure?"
His eyes rested on the smiling, lovelit face of Ruth, and he forgot the storm in the deeper wonder of a pure woman's love.
