breezes from the Gulf, light, zephyry clouds
gathered, shut off the brazen sunlight and burst into a grateful
shower, which descended upon the parched and deadened fields of corn.

But Seth!

Flung on his knees by the side of the bed in the corner of the hole in
the ground, his face buried in his arms, he listened to the patter of
those raindrops on the corn.

His eyes were dry; but a spring had broken somewhere near the region
of his heart.

He owned himself defeated.

He gave up the fight.

CHAPTER XX.

[Illustration]

Cyclona had gone to Seth's dugout and found a note from him on the
table. It contained few words, but they held a world of meaning.
Simple words and few, tolling her knell of doom.

"I have gone to Celia," it read.

Cyclona crushed the paper, flung it to the floor and ran from the hole
in the ground, afraid of she knew not what, engulfed in the awful fear
which encompasses the hopeless,--the fear of herself.

She sprang to her saddle and urged her broncho on with heel and whip,
upright as an Indian in her saddle, her face set, expressionless in
its marble-like immobility.

She scarcely heeded the direction she took. She left that to her
broncho, who sped into the heat of the dusty daylight, following hard
in the footsteps of the wind.

What she wished to do was to go straight to God, to stand before Him
and ask him questions.

If within us earthworms there is the Divine Spark of the Deity, if we
are in truth His sons and daughters, she reasoned, then we have some
rights that this Deity is bound to respect.

What earthly father would knowingly permit his children to stumble
blindly along dangerous pathways into dangerous places?

What earthly father would demand that his children rush headlong into
danger unquestioningly?

What earthly father would create hearts only to crush them?

Why had He thrust human beings onto this earth against their will,
without their volition, to suffer the tortures of the damned?

Why had He created this huge joke of an animal, part body, part soul,
all nerves keen to catch at suffering, only to laugh at it?

Why had He taken the pains to fashion this Opera Bouffe of a world at
all? Why had He made of it a slate upon which to draw lines of human
beings, then wipe them aimlessly off as would any child?

For mere amusement after the manner of children?

If not, then why? Why? Why?

She could have screamed out this "Why" into the way of th