t one of them,
watching the lightning illumine the broad breast of the mountain behind.
Then looking towards the door of Beatrice's room, he gazed at it with
the peculiar reverence that sometimes afflicts people who are very much
in love, and, with a sigh, turned and sought his own.

He could not sleep, it was impossible. For nearly two hours he lay
turning from side to side, and thinking till his brain seemed like to
burst. To-morrow he must leave her, leave her for ever, and go back to
his coarse unprofitable struggle with the world, where there would be no
Beatrice to make him happy through it all. And she, what of her?

The storm had lulled a little, now it came back in strength, heralded
by the lightning. He rose, threw on a dressing-gown, and sat by a window
watching it. Its tumult and fury seemed to ease his heart of some little
of its pain; in that dark hour a quiet night would have maddened him.

In eight hours--eight short hours--this matter would be ended so far as
concerned their actual intercourse. It would be a secret locked for ever
in their two breasts, a secret eating at their hearts, cruel as the worm
that dieth not. Geoffrey looked up and threw out his heart's thought
towards his sleeping love. Then once more, as in a bygone night, there
broke upon his brain and being that mysterious spiritual sense. Stronger
and more strong it grew, beating on him in heavy unnatural waves,
till his reason seemed to reel and sink, and he remembered naught but
Beatrice, knew naught save that her very life was with him now.

He stretched out his arms towards the place where she should be.

"Beatrice," he whispered to the empty air, "Beatrice! Oh, my love! my
sweet! my soul! Hear me, Beatrice!"

There came a pause, and ever the unearthly sympathy grew and gathered in
his heart, till it seemed to him as though separation had lost its power
and across dividing space they were mingled in one being.

A great gust shook the house and passed away along the roaring depths.

Oh! what was this? Silently the door opened, and a white draped form
passed its threshold. He rose, gasping; a terrible fear, a terrible joy,
took possession of him. The lightning flared out wildly in the eastern
sky. There in the fierce light she stood before him--she, Beatrice, a
sight of beauty and of dread. She stood with white arms outstretched,
with white uncovered feet, her bosom heaving softly beneath her
night-dress, her streaming hair unboun