While these tactics were under discussion the two-and-thirty winds of
heaven continued, as before, to beat about the tower, though their onsets
appeared to be somewhat lessening in force. Himself now calmed and
satisfied, Swithin, as is the wont of humanity, took serener views of
Nature's crushing mechanics without, and said, 'The wind doesn't seem
disposed to put the tragic period to our hopes and fears that I spoke of
in my momentary despair.'

'The disposition of the wind is as vicious as ever,' she answered,
looking into his face with pausing thoughts on, perhaps, other subjects
than that discussed. 'It is your mood of viewing it that has changed.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."'

And, as if flatly to stultify Swithin's assumption, a circular hurricane,
exceeding in violence any that had preceded it, seized hold upon Rings-
Hill Speer at that moment with the determination of a conscious agent.
The first sensation of a resulting catastrophe was conveyed to their
intelligence by the flapping of the candle-flame against the
lantern-glass; then the wind, which hitherto they had heard rather than
felt, rubbed past them like a fugitive. Swithin beheld around and above
him, in place of the concavity of the dome, the open heaven, with its
racing clouds, remote horizon, and intermittent gleam of stars. The dome
that had covered the tower had been whirled off bodily; and they heard it
descend crashing upon the trees.

Finding himself untouched Swithin stretched out his arms towards Lady
Constantine, whose apparel had been seized by the spinning air, nearly
lifting her off her legs. She, too, was as yet unharmed. Each held the
other for a moment, when, fearing that something further would happen,
they took shelter in the staircase.

'Dearest, what an escape!' he said, still holding her.

'What is the accident?' she asked. 'Has the whole top really gone?'

'The dome has been blown off the roof.'

As soon as it was practicable he relit the extinguished lantern, and they
emerged again upon the leads, where the extent of the disaster became at
once apparent. Saving the absence of the enclosing hemisphere all
remained the same. The dome, being constructed of wood, was light by
comparison with the rest of the structure, and the wheels which allowed
it horizontal, or, as Swithin expressed it, azimuth motion, denied it a
firm hold upon the walls; so that it had been lifted off them li