The world was washed clean, that was sure.

It was muddy under foot, but it was a country where the roads soon dried, and he would suffer little inconvenience from the storm.

He bade his host good-bye and drove away intent to reach the city in time for breakfast.

He found the roads heavy, and the injury of the storm was everywhere to be seen.

Yet it all did not distract him, for he was thinking hard of the things that lay ahead of him to do--the heart-breaking things that his defeat meant to him.
At last he approached a bridge across a stream which had been badly swept by the storm.