y the collar.

"He's all right," she said. "I think he doesn't like strangers."

She led him also across the hall, took him to the foot of the stairs,
and returned.

She felt Max's eyes upon her as she came up. He seemed to be regarding
her in a new light.

"Well?" he said. "Why this hysteria? Is it due to the storm or--some
other cause?"

She hesitated, finding it somehow difficult to give an answer to his
cool questioning.

"I'll tell him, shall I?" said Nick.

She came and slipped her hand into his. "Yes, Nick."

He squeezed her fingers hard. "Our friend Hunt-Goring has been sticking
his oar in," he said. "This--hysteria has been caused by him."

"You mean he has told her the whole story?" said Max.

"Yes," said Olga.

He considered the matter for a few seconds in silence. "And how long has
this sort of thing been going on?" he asked then.

Again she hesitated.

He looked at her. "It's no good trying to keep anything from me," he
observed. "I've seen it coming for a long while."

"Oh, Max!" she burst forth involuntarily. "Then it really is--"

A vivid flash of lightning and instant crashing thunder drowned her
words. Instinctively she drew nearer to Nick. On many a previous
occasion they had watched a storm together with delight. But to-day her
nerves were all a-quiver, and its violence appalled her.

As the noise died away, Max looked about the shadowy place. "Is there
any means of lighting this tomb?" he asked.

Apparently there was not. Olga believed there were some electric
switches somewhere but she had forgotten where.

Max began to stroll about in search of them.

"Here comes the rain!" said Nick. "It will be lighter directly."

The rain came quite suddenly in an immense volume, that beat with
deafening force upon the roof, drowning all but the loudest crashes of
thunder. For a few seconds the darkness was like night. Then, swift and
awful, there came a flash that was brighter than the noonday sun. It
streaked through the stained-glass window, showing the dreadful picture
like a vision to those below it, throwing a stream of vivid crimson upon
the floor; then glanced away into the dark.

There came a sound like the bursting of shell that shook the very walls
to their foundation. And through it and above it, high and horrible as
the laughter of storm-fiends there came a woman's laugh....

In that instant Nick's hand suddenly left Olga's. He leaped from her
side with the agility of a