Thus reasoning, with perfect clarity and a long-headedness that proved him a strategist at four-and-twenty, Gabriel Armstrong whistled a louder note as he tramped away to northward, away from the hateful presence of Herzog, away from the wage-slavery of the Oakwood Heights plant, away--with that precious secret in his brain--toward the far scene of destined warfare, where stranger things were to ensue than even he could possibly conceive. Saturday morning found him, his visit with Underwood at an end, already twenty miles or more from the Bronx River, marching along through Haverstraw, up the magnificent road that fringes the Hudson--now hidden from the mighty river behind a forest-screen, now curving on bold abutments right above the sun-kissed expanses of Haverstraw Bay, here more than two miles from wooded shore to shore. At eleven, he halted at a farm house, some miles north of the town, got a job on the woodpile, and astonished the farmer by the amount of birch he could saw in an hour. He took his pay in the shape of a bountiful dinner, and--after half an hour's smoke and talk with the farmer, to whom he gave a few pamphlets from the store in his knapsack--said good-bye to all hands and once more set his face northward for the long hike through much wilder country, to West Point, where he hoped to pass the night. Thus we must leave him, for a while. For now the thread of our narration, like the silken cord in the Labyrinth of Crete, leads us back to the Country Club at Longmeadow, the scene, that very afternoon, of the sudden and violent rupture between the financier and Catherine Flint. Catherine, her first indignation somewhat abated, and now vastly relieved at the realization that she indeed was free from her loveless and long-since irksome alliance with Waldron, calmly enough returned to the club-house. Head well up, and eyes defiant, she walked up the broad steps and into the office. Little cared she whether the piazza gossips--The Hammer and Anvil Club, in local slang--divined the quarrel or not. The girl felt herself immeasurably indifferent to such pettinesses as prying small talk and innuendo. Let people know, or not, as might be, she cared not a whit. Her business was her own. No wagging of tongues could one hair's breadth disturb that splendid calm of hers. The clerk, behind the desk, smiled and nodded at her approach. "Please have my car brought round to the porte-cochère, at once?" she asked. "And tell Herrick to be sure there's plenty of gas for a long run. I'm going through to New York." "So soon?" queried the clerk. "I'm sure your father will be disappointed, Miss Flint. He's just wired that he's coming out tomorrow, to spend Sunday here. He particularly asks to have you remain. See here?" He handed her a telegram. She glanced it over, then crumpled it and tossed it into the office fire-place.