ion held all
three.

The children might have been drawn by Du Maurier in Punch long ago, to
express a family who were overbred. Race run to seed expressed itself in
every line of them. The boy wore an Eton jacket and collar and a tall
hat--and it looked quite strange in this place.

As they got close to me I could hear him cough in the hollow way which
tells its own story--.

I cowered down behind the hood of the motor, and they passed without
seeing me--or perhaps Miss Sharp did see me but was determined not to
look--. I felt utterly alone and deserted by all the world--and the same
nervous trembling came over me which once before made me suffer so, and
again I was conscious that my cheek was wet with a tear.

The humiliation of it! the disgrace of such feebleness!--

When they had gone by, I started forward again to watch them--I could
hear the little girl cry, "Oh! look Alathea!" as she pointed to the sky,
and then all three began to quicken their pace down another _allee_, in
the direction of Auteuil, and were soon out of sight.

Then, still quivering with emotion, I too glanced heavenward--Ye Gods!
what a storm was coming on--!

Where were they going? there into the deep wood?--it was a good mile or
two from the Auteuil gate--They would be soaked to the skin when the
rain did commence to fall--and there was a thunder storm beginning
also--were they quite safe?

All these thoughts tormented me, and I gave the chauffeur orders to take
a road I thought might cut across the path they had followed, and when
we reached the spot, I made him wait.

The livid lightning rent the sky and the thunder roared like guns, and
the few people in sight rushed, panic-stricken, in a hopeless search for
shelter--far greater fear on their faces than they show at German bombs.

My chauffeur complained audibly, as he got down to shut the car--Did
Monsieur wish to be struck by lightning? he demanded, very enraged.

Still I waited--but no Sharp family appeared--and at last I knew I had
missed them somehow--a very easy thing in that path-bisected wood. So I
told him he could drive like hell to my _appartement_ in the _Place des
Etats Unis_--and off we rushed in the now torrential rain--It was one of
the worst thunder storms I have ever seen in my life.

I was horribly worried as to what could have happened to that little
party, for that _allee_ where I had seen them, was in the very middle of
the _Bois_, and far from any gate or