The guests were leaving when Shelton, who was watching; saw Antonia slip
through the drawing-room window. He could follow the white glimmer
of her frock across the lawn, but lost it in the shadow of the trees;
casting a hasty look to see that he was not observed, he too slipped
out. The blackness and the heat were stifling he took great breaths of
it as if it were the purest mountain air, and, treading softly on the
grass, stole on towards the holm oak. His lips were dry, his heart beat
painfully. The mutter of the distant thunder had quite ceased; waves of
hot air came wheeling in his face, and in their midst a sudden rush of
cold. He thought, "The storm is coming now!" and stole on towards the
tree. She was lying in the hammock, her figure a white blur in, the
heart of the tree's shadow, rocking gently to a little creaking of the
branch. Shelton held his breath; she had not heard him. He crept up
close behind the trunk till he stood in touch of her. "I mustn't startle
her," he thought. "Antonia!"

There was a faint stir in the hammock, but no answer. He stood over
her, but even then he could not see her face; he only, had a sense of
something breathing and alive within a yard of him--of something warm
and soft. He whispered again, "Antonia!" but again there came no answer,
and a sort of fear and frenzy seized on him. He could no longer hear her
breathe; the creaking of the branch had ceased. What was passing in
that silent, living creature there so close? And then he heard again the
sound of breathing, quick and scared, like the fluttering of a bird; in
a moment he was staring in the dark at an empty hammock.

He stayed beside the empty hammock till he could bear uncertainty no
longer. But as he crossed the lawn the sky was rent from end to end
by jagged lightning, rain spattered him from head to foot, and with a
deafening crack the thunder broke.

He sought the smoking-room, but, recoiling at the door, went to his
own room, and threw himself down on the bed. The thunder groaned and
sputtered in long volleys; the lightning showed him the shapes of things
within the room, with a weird distinctness that rent from them all
likeness to the purpose they were made for, bereaved them of utility,
of their matter-of-factness, presented them as skeletons, abstractions,
with indecency in their appearance, like the naked nerves and sinews
of a leg preserved in, spirit. The sound of the rain against the house
stunned his powe