prano rang softly through the
room in Tosti's plaintive song, "Good-bye!" We listened, but none of us
moved from the open window where we still inhaled what air there was,
and watched the lowering sky.

"Hush! a voice from the far-away,
'Listen and learn,' it seems to say;
'All the to-morrows shall be as to-day,'"

sang Amy with pathetic sweetness. Zara suddenly moved, as if oppressed,
from her position among us as we stood clustered together, and stepped
out through the French window into the outside balcony, her head
uncovered to the night.

"You will catch cold!" Mrs. Challoner and I both called to her
simultaneously. She shook her head, smiling back at us; and folding her
arms lightly on the stone balustrade, leaned there and looked up at the
clouds.

"The link must break, and the lamp must die;
Good-bye to Hope! Good-bye--good-bye!"

Amy's voice was a peculiarly thrilling one, and on this occasion
sounded with more than its usual tenderness. What with her singing and
the invisible presence of the storm, an utter silence possessed us--not
one of us cared to move.

Heliobas once stepped to his sister's side in the open balcony, and
said something, as I thought, to warn her against taking cold; but it
was a very brief whisper, and he almost immediately returned to his
place amongst us. Zara looked very lovely out there; the light coming
from the interior of the room glistened softly on the sheen of her
satin dress and its ornaments of pearls; and the electric stone on her
bosom shone faintly, like a star on a rainy evening. Her beautiful
face, turned upwards to the angry sky, was half in light and half in
shade; a smile parted her lips, and her eyes were bright with a look of
interest and expectancy. Another sudden glare, and the clouds were
again broken asunder; but this time in a jagged and hasty manner, as
though a naked sword had been thrust through them and immediately
withdrawn.

"That was a nasty flash," said Colonel Everard, with an observant
glance at the lovely Juliet-like figure on the balcony. "Mademoiselle,
had you not better come in?"

"When it begins to rain I will come in," she said, without changing her
posture. "I hear the singing so well out here. Besides, I love the
storm."

A tumultuous crash of thunder, tremendous for its uproar and the length
of time it was prolonged, made us look at each other again with anxious
faces.

"What are we waiting for? Oh, my heart!