He had wakened suddenly; the skies had been sapphire, the sward emerald, Plattville a Camelot of romance; to be there, enchantment--and now, like a meteor burned out in a breath, the necromancy fell away and he gazed into desolate years. The thought of the Square, his dusty office, the bleak length of Main Street, as they should appear to-morrow, gave him a faint physical sickness. To-day it had all been touched to beauty; he had felt fit to live and work there a thousand years--a fool's dream, and the waking was to emptiness. He should die now of hunger and thirst in that Sahara; he hoped the Fates would let it be soon--but he knew they would not; knew that this was hysteria, that in his endurance he should plod on, plod, plod dustily on, through dingy, lonely years. There was a rumble of thunder far out on the western prairie. A cold breath stole through the hot stillness, and an arm of vapor reached out between the moon and the quiet earth. Darkness fell. The man and the girl kept silence between them. They might have been two sad guardians of the black little stream that splashed unseen at their feet. Now and then an echo of far away lightning faintly illumined them with a green light. Thunder rolled nearer, ominously; the gods were driving their chariots over the bridge. The chill breath passed, leaving the air again to its hot inertia. “I did not want to go,” she said, at last, with tears just below the surface of her voice. “I wanted to stay here, but he--they wouldn't--I can't.” “Wanted to stay here?” he said, huskily, not turning. “Here?” “Yes.” “In Rouen, you mean?” “In Plattville.” “In Plattville?” He turned now, astounded. “Yes; wouldn't you have taken me on the 'Herald'?” She rose and came toward him. “I could have supported myself here if you would--and I've studied how newspapers are made; I know I could have earned a wage. We could have made it a daily.” He searched in vain for a trace of raillery in her voice; there was none; she seemed to intend her words to be taken literally. “I don't understand,” he said. “I don't know what you mean.” “I mean that I want to stay here; that I ought to stay here; that my conscience tells me I should--but I can't and it makes me very unhappy. That was why I acted so badly.” “Your conscience!” he cried. “Oh, I know what a jumble and puzzle it must seem to you.” “I only know one thing; that you are going away to-morrow morning, and that I shall never see you again.”