le, and let
it fall again. When told a little later that a telegram had been sent to
Harz his eyes expressed satisfaction.

Herr Paul came down in ignorance of the night's events. He stopped in
front of the barometer and tapped it, remarking to Miss Naylor: "The
glass has gone downstairs; we shall have cool weather--it will still go
well with him!"

When, with her brown face twisted by pity and concern, she told him that
it was a question of hours, Herr Paul turned first purple, then
pale, and sitting down, trembled violently. "I cannot believe it," he
exclaimed almost angrily. "Yesterday he was so well! I cannot believe
it! Poor Nicholas! Yesterday 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 th