The next morning came wrapped in a dreadful silence.  Men stood about in huddling groups and whispered.  The exaltation of the night before had been too violent.  A great dreariness oppressed Fred Starratt.  He felt the inevitable sadness of a man who had met unveiled Beauty face to face and as speedily found the vision dissolved.  The tree still swept the rooms and corridors with its fragrance, but in the harsh daylight its cheap trappings gave it a wanton look.  Somehow, it mocked him, filled him with a sense of the vanity of life and all its fleeting impressions.  The rain came down in a tremulous flood, investing everything with its colorless tears.  The trees, the buildings, the very earth itself seemed to be melting away in silvery-gray grief.

Just before noon it lightened up a trifle and the rain stopped.

“Let’s get out of this!” Monet said, sweeping the frozen assembly in the smoking room with an almost scornful glance.

They found their hats and without further ado they started on a swing about the grounds.  It grew lighter and lighter ... it seemed for a moment as if the sun would presently peep out from the clouds.  They achieved the full length of the parade ground and stopped, panting for breath.  Fred wiped his forehead with a huge handkerchief.

“Shall we keep going?” he asked.

Monet nodded.  They swung into a wolfish trot again, across a stretch of green turf, avoiding the clogging mud of the beaten trails.  They said nothing.  Presently their rhythmic flight settled down to a pleasurable monotony.  They lost all sense of time and space.

Gradually their speed slackened, and they were conscious that they were winding up ... up...  It was Monet who halted first.  They were on a flat surface again, coming out of a thicket suddenly.  There was a level sweep of ground, ending abruptly in space.

“We’re on Squaw Rock!” Fred Starratt exclaimed.

The two went forward to the edge of a precipice.  The embryo plain leaped violently down a sheer three hundred feet directly into the lap of a foaming river pool.  Fred peered over.

“There’s the usual Indian legend, isn’t there,” he asked Monet, “connected with this place?”

Monet moved back with a little shudder.  “Yes ...  I believe there is...  The inevitable lovelorn maiden and the leap to death...  Well, it’s a good plunging place.”

They both fell back a trifle, letting their gaze sweep the landscape below, which was unfolding in theatrical unreality.  At that moment the sun came out, flooding the countryside with a flash of truant splendor.  To the south nestled the cluster of hospital buildings, each sending out thin gray lines of smoke.  Moving up the valley, hugging the sinuous banks of the river, a train nosed its impudent way.

“When shall we be leaving for good?” Monet asked, suddenly.

Fred let out a deep breath.  “The first time it really clears!”