For two days in the South American city Lovat now raged like a madman, now was limp and gray as if all life had left. The storm crashed like artillery. The wind swirled in terrific outshoots of uncontrolled power. Rain whorled like a water-burst. And all the time there ran through Lovat's head the unending, pounding rhythm: "The bridge! The bridge is down! Is down! The bridge! The bridge is down!" Statesmen and ministers looked at him in pity, forgetting the country's loss in the great grief of the artist.  
Cecily he was n't worried about. He knew she was all right. There was an army to take care of her there, and their home was solid, would last against the deluge.
 
Three days ago and no warning of this cataclysm.
 
And now, to-day! To-day was like the Day of Judgment. To be sure, a half-crazy astronomer had predicted the end of the world, and sane scientists had pooh-poohed it, saying that there might be bad weather from the stellar conjunctions, but outside of that—nothing. And then, suddenly, this immensity of flood. Down in the lowlands, on the shore of the Caribbees, there had been havoc past imagining. Whole towns were swept away. There had been no chance of getting in touch with the bridge. All telegraph wires were down.
 
Now it was Wednesday, and on Sunday he had left to discuss some details of the opening with the ministry and he had asked Cecily to come with him, but she would not go.
 
"Lover, no," she had said; "I would rather stay here by the bridge."
 
"But, Cecily, you have n't been away ............