"Was I snoring, child?" asks Mrs. Fleming, with some anxiety.
"Not much."
Hark! A few drops of rain, heavy as lead, fall with a hissing sound upon the pavement; a low faint moan comes sweeping up over the land, and now with an awful, shivering reverberation, the heavens are rent in twain, the forked lightning leaps out, the flood-gates of heaven are loosed, and the storm is upon us. I bury my head in my hands to shut out the glare of the lightning, but through the hideous discord, I hear Mrs. Fleming's voice ask, in sharp fear, "Where is Silvia?"
Out yonder; out in the fury and teeth of the storm, as reckless, as wild as the hurricane itself; and God only knows what depths, of misery and shame she is sounding. Paul Vasher's face was not hard to read. And, child as I am, I know that she has played her last stake, and lost!
In her present mood she will court death, if I know anything of her character. Some one must find her, and bring her back. But who? I will. My life out there is as much in God's hand as here; and though I do not love her, I would do this much for my worst enemy. I take my hands from my eyes, snatch up a shawl lying near, and, heedless of Mrs. Fleming's exclamations of horror, step out on to the terrace. Down comes the waterspout in its resistless strength, almost beating me to earth; blinded with lightning, deafened with thunder, bewildered by the hurly-burly, I push on. looking hither and thither, in every nook and corner, but I cannot find her. Stronger and fiercer grows the storm. At my side a tree smitten in mid-air by an unseen hand, is whirled aloft, and hurled crashing to the ground; a rabbit, struck dead by lightning, lies in my path; overhead, from end to end of heaven, echoes that long, hollow, shuddering peal that always sounds to me like the shrieks and wild laughter of lost souls in Hades. At last I come upon her sitting under a tree, in a far-off corner, looking out at the storm as
