esterday he spoke to me!" Taking Miss Naylor's hand, he
clutched it in his own. "Ah!" he cried, letting it go suddenly, and
striking at his forehead, "it is too terrible; only yesterday he spoke to
me of sherry. Is there nobody, then, who can do good?"

"There is only God," replied Miss Naylor softly.

"God?" said Herr Paul in a scared voice.

"We--can--all--pray to Him," Miss Naylor murmured; little spots of colour
came into her cheeks. "I am going to do it now."

Herr Paul raised her hand and kissed it.

"Are you?" he said; "good! I too." He passed through his study door,
closed it carefully behind him, then for some unknown reason set his back
against it. Ugh! Death! It came to all! Some day it would come to
him. It might come tomorrow! One must pray!

The day dragged to its end. In the sky clouds had mustered, and,
crowding close on one another, clung round the sun, soft, thick,
greywhite, like the feathers on a pigeon's breast. Towards evening faint
tremblings were felt at intervals, as from the shock of immensely distant
earthquakes.

Nobody went to bed that night, but in the morning the report was the
same: "Unconscious--a question of hours." Once only did he recover
consciousness, and then asked for Harz. A telegram had come from him, he
was on the way. Towards seven of the evening the long-expected storm
broke in a sky like ink. Into the valleys and over the crests of
mountains it seemed as though an unseen hand were spilling goblets of
pale wine, darting a sword-blade zigzag over trees, roofs, spires, peaks,
into the very firmament, which answered every thrust with great bursts of
groaning. Just beyond the veranda Greta saw a glowworm shining, as it
might be a tiny bead of the fallen lightning. Soon the rain covered
everything. Sometimes a jet of light brought the hilltops, towering,
dark, and hard, over the house, to disappear again behind the raindrops
and shaken leaves. Each breath drawn by the storm was like the clash of a
thousand cymbals; and in his room Mr. Treffry lay unconscious of its
fury.

Greta had crept in unobserved; and sat curled in a corner, with Scruff in
her arms, rocking slightly to and fro. When Christian passed, she caught
her skirt, and whispered: "It is your birthday, Chris!"

Mr. Treffry stirred.

"What's that? Thunder?--it's cooler. Where am I? Chris!"

Dawney signed for her to take his place.

"Chris!" Mr. Treffry said. "It's near now." She be