He had as much as confessed to her that she had come to change him--to complete what he had only half created.

It had been an almost inconceivable and daring confession, and he believed that she understood him.

More than that, she had read about him.

She had read his books.

She knew John Aldous--the man.
But what did he know about her beyond the fact that her name was Joanne Gray, and that the on-sweeping Horde had brought her into his life as mysteriously as a storm might have flung him a bit of down from a swan's breast?
Where had she come from?
And why was she going to Tete Jaune?
It must be some important motive was taking her to a place like Tete Jaune, the rail-end, a place of several thousand men, with its crude muscle and brawn and the seven passions of man.