Little groups of desolate, disheartened people stood along the line of hitching racks; dead coals, which the wind had sown as living fire over the square, littered the white dust. Morgan had taken off his badge of office, having made a formal resignation to Judge Thayer, mayor of the town. Nobody had been sworn in to take his place, for, as Judge Thayer had said, it did not appear as if any further calamity could be left in store among the misfortunes for that town, except it might be an earthquake or a cyclone, and a city marshal, even Morgan, could not fend against them if they were to come.
"You have trampled your place among the thorns," said Rhetta.
"It looks like I've pulled a good deal down with me," he returned, viewing the seat of fire with a softening of pity in his grave face.
"All that deserves to rise will rise again," she said in confidence. "It's a good thing it burned—it's purged of its old shame and old monuments of corruption. I'm glad it's gone."
There was a quiet over the place, as if the heart of turbulence had been broken and its spirit had taken flight. In the southwest, in the faces of the two watchers at the margin of this ruin, a vast dark cloud stood like a landfall rising in the mariner's eye out of the sea. It had been visible since four o'clock, seeming to hesitate as if nature intended again to deny this parched and suffering land the consolation of rain. Now it was rising, already it had overspread the sunset glow, casting a cool shadow full of promise over the thirsting prairie wastes.
"It will rain this time," Rhetta prophesied. "It always comes up slowly that way when it rains a long time."
"A rain will work wonders in this country," he said, his face lifted to the promise of the cloud.
"And wisdom and faith will do more," she told him, her voice tender and low.
"And love," said he, voice solemn as a prophet's, yet gentle as a dove's.
"And love," she whispered, the wind, springing like an inspiration before the rain, lifting her shadowy hair.