Gossips had promptly decided that Sammy was Caleb’s child, and Jean’s had been a peculiarly sad case. The story lost nothing in transmission, and Diana tried not to recall details as she walked. Why should she? The man was nothing to her! Her father did not believe all he heard, and neither did she, but she was more tormented than if she had believed the worst. Certainty carries healing in its wings; doubt is more cruel than a whip of scorpions. She had tried to understand the man and she could not; one thing contradicted another, but he was strong, his figure loomed above the others, and the storm was gathering about it, as the clouds sweep around the loftiest peak. The hottest contest for years was brewing in the conventions, and it was known--and well-known--that Caleb Trench had an immense influence with the largest element of the party. He was convinced that Aylett’s government was weak and permeated with corruption, and he was making his conviction public, with a force and certainty that were bewildering far older politicians. In fact, the man was no politician at all; he was a born reformer, and he was making himself felt. Diana, too, had felt his force and resented it. She resented also his duel with her cousin. The cheap sensationalism of a duel irritated her, and she did not place the whole blame upon Jacob, for she knew--Aunt Charity had spread it--that Caleb had knocked Jacob down. She was ashamed that she almost tingled with joy at the thought of him towering in wrath over Jacob, for she could divine the insulting tone that must have provoked him beyond endurance. She could divine it, but she would not accept it. Jacob was her own relation, and Jacob had been knocked down. It was maddening from that point of view, and Diana felt that nothing but blood could have atoned to her for being laid in the dust. Yet she thrilled at the thought that Caleb Trench had dealt the blow, that the son of the Philadelphia Quaker was a man. Thus contradictory is the heart of woman! Meanwhile, she had left the confines of Broad Acres and was walking slowly up the trail to Angel Pass. Not far away was the spot where she had stood and talked with Caleb in the sweet twilight. Below her, as the path climbed, was the long slope of rolling meadows which lay between this spot and Paradise Ridge. Around her the tree trunks stood in serried ranks, and here and there, where the wild grapevines hung in long festoons, she noticed the tight clusters of green grapes. She wished devoutly that she could think of something beside the slightly awkward figure, the sharp lines of the clean-cut face, as it had looked in the twilight. Since then they had met more than once, but it was that picture of him which haunted her, and she was scarcely startled when she turned the corner by the pines and saw him ahead of her with Shot.