street bridge like as not, before we get there. There's no shelter
between here and Lagonda Ledge. Let's all cut for it before the rain
beats us into the mud."

The deluge was just beginning, so, safe, but wet, and mud-smeared,
fighting wind and rain and darkness, taking it all as a jolly lark,
although they had slidden into safety but a hand's breadth in front
of death, the couples straggled back to town.

Vincent Burgess, anxious, angry, and jealous, found an unconscious
comfort in Dennie Saxon in that homeward struggle. She was so capable
and cheery that he forgot a little the girl who had as surely drawn him
Kansas-ward as his interest in types and geographical breadth had done.
It dimly entered his consciousness, as he told Dennie good-bye, that maybe she
had been the most desirable companion of the crowd on such a night as this.
He knew, at least, that he would have shown Elinor much more attention
than he had shown to Dennie, and he knew that Elinor would have required
it of him.

The light from the hall was streaming across the veranda of the Saxon House,
a beam as faithful and friendly at the border of the lower campus
as the bigger beacon in the college turret up on the lime-stone ridge.
As Burgess started away the worst deluge of the night fell out of the sky,
so he dropped down on a seat to wait for the downpour to weaken.
He was very tired and his mind was feverishly busy. Where could
Burleigh and Elinor be now? What dangers might threaten them?
What ill might befall Elinor from exposure to this beating storm?
He was frantic with the thought. Then he recalled Dennie, the girl who was
working her way through college, whom he--Professor Vincent Burgess, A.B.,
from Harvard--had escorted home. How cheap Kansas was making him.