.

"Lena!" he cried out under his breath.

She was gone from his side. He dared not trust himself--no, not even to
the extent of a tender word.

Turning to go out he heard a thud somewhere in the house. To open the
door, he had first to lift the curtain; he did so with his face over his
shoulder. The merest trickle of light, earning through the keyhole
and one or two cracks, was enough for his eyes to see her plainly, all
black, down on her knees, with her head and arms flung on the foot of
the bed--all black in the desolation of a mourning sinner. What was
this? A suspicion that there were everywhere more things than he
could understand crossed Heyst's mind. Her arm, detached from the bed,
motioned him away. He obeyed, and went out, full of disquiet.

The curtain behind him had not ceased to tremble when she was up on her
feet, close against it, listening for sounds, for words, in a stooping,
tragic attitude of stealthy attention, one hand clutching at her breast
as if to compress, to make less loud the beating of her heart. Heyst
had caught Mr. Jones's secretary in the contemplation of his closed
writing-desk. Ricardo might have been meditating how to break into it;
but when he turned about suddenly, he showed so distorted a face that
it made Heyst pause in wonder at the upturned whites of the eyes, which
were blinking horribly, as if the man were inwardly convulsed.

"I thought you were never coming," Ricardo mumbled.

"I didn't know you were pressed for time. Even if your going away
depends on this conversation, as you say, I doubt if you are the men to
put to sea on such a night as this," said Heyst, motioning Ricardo to
precede him out of the house.

With feline undulations of hip and shoulder, the secretary left the
room at once. There was something cruel in the absolute dumbness of the
night. The great cloud covering half the sky hung right against one,
like an enormous curtain hiding menacing preparations of violence. As
the feet of the two men touched the ground, a rumble came from behind
it, preceded by a swift, mysterious gleam of light on the waters of the
bay.

"Ha!" said Ricardo. "It begins."

"It may be nothing in the end," observed Heyst, stepping along steadily.

"No! Let it come!" Ricardo said viciously. "I am in the humour for it!"

By the time the two men had reached the other bungalow, the far-off
modulated rumble growled incessantly, while pale lightning in waves of
cold fire flooded