l know the clear-cut magnificence of the
great thundercloud against the sky, its tremendous deliberation, its
hills and valleys of curdling mist, fraught with God knows what
potential of destruction in volts and ohms; the ceaseless muttering
of its wrath as it speaks to its own heart, and its sullen secrets
reverberate from cavern to cavern in the very core of its innermost
blackness. We know the last prismatic benedictions of the sun it means
to hide from us--the strange gleams of despairing light on the other
clouds--clouds that are not in it, mere outsiders or spectators. We
can remember them after we have got home in time to avoid a wetting,
and can get our moist water-colours out and do a recollection of
them before they go out of our heads--or think we can.

But we know, too, that there comes a time of a sudden wind and
agitated panic of the trees, and then big, warm preliminary drops,
and then the first clap of thunder, clear in its own mind and full of
purpose. Then the first downpour of rain, that isn't quite so clear,
and wavers for a breathing-space, till the tart reminder of the first
swift, decisive lightning-flash recalls it to its duty, and it becomes
a steady, intolerable torrent that empties roads and streets of
passers-by, and makes the gutters rivulets. And then the storm
itself--flash upon flash--peal upon peal--up to the blinding and
deafening climax, glare and thunderbolt in a breath. And then it's
overhead, and we are sure something has been struck that time.

It was all plain sailing, two days since, in the love-storm we want
the foregoing sketch of a thunderstorm to illustrate, that was brewing
in the firmament of Conrad Vereker's soul. At the point corresponding
to the first decisive clap of thunder--wherever it was--Chaos set in
in that firmament. And Chaos was developing rapidly at the time when
the doctor, rescued by Sally's intrepidity from the maternal clutch,
started on what he believed would be his last walk with his idol at
St. Sennans. Now he knew that, when he got back to London, though
there might be, academically speaking, opportunities of seeing Sally,
it wasn't going to be the same thing. That was the phrase his mind
used, and we know quite well what it meant.

Of course, when some peevish author or invalid sends out a servant
to make you take your organ farther off, a good way down the street,
you can begin again exactly where you left off, lower down. But a
barrel-organ has n