lps one to know one's self, and that is better than lying
wrapped in cotton wool. Give my kindest greetings to everybody at
Glenfaba--my love to my father, too, if there are any means of conveying
it."

The letter took him long to write, and when it was written he went out
into the hall to post it. There he saw that a thunderstorm was coming,
and he concluded to remain until it had passed over. He stepped into the
library and selected a book, and returned to his room to read it. The
book was St. John Chrysostom on the Priesthood, and the subject was
congenial, but he could not keep his mind on the printed page: He
thought of the Father Superior, of the little brotherhood in Bishopsgate,
and then of Glory at the hospital ball, and again of Glory, and yet again
and again of Glory. Do what he would, he could not help but think of her.

The storm pealed over his head, and when he returned to the hall two
hours later it was still far from spent. He stood at the open door and
watched it. Forks of lightning lit up the park, and floods of black rain
made the vacant pavements like the surface of the sea. A tinkling cab
slid past at intervals, with its driver sheeted in oilskins, and now and
then there was an omnibus, full within and empty without. Only one other
living thing was to be seen anywhere. An Italian organ-man had stationed
himself in front of a mansion to the left and was playing vigorously.

John Storm walked through the hospital. It was now late, and the house
was quiet. The house-doctor had made the last of his rounds and turned
into his chambers across the courtyard, and the night-nurses were boiling
little kettles in their rooms between the wards. The surgical wards were
darkened, and the patients were asleep already. In the medical wards
there were screens about certain of the beds, and weary moans came from
behind them.

It was after midnight when John Storm came round to the hall again, and
then the rain had ceased, but the thunder was still rumbling. He might
have gone home at length, but he did not go; he realized that he was
waiting for Glory. Other nurses returned from the ball, and bowed to him
and passed into the house. He stepped into the porter's lodge, and sat
down and watched the lightning. It began to be terrible to him, because
it seemed to be symbolical. What doom or what disaster did this storm
typify and predict? Never could he forget the night on which it befell.
It was the night of the Nur