counting in time, and I for one did not regret his absence.

Yes, it was a ray of Paradise that sunset glow, as we walked among the
flowers in the dew of the evening, for although we two were not alone
together yet there was a sweet subtle understanding between us which was
infinitely restful. Falkner's interruption, however unwelcome, had not
been altogether inopportune, for it had occurred too late; too late,
that is, to prevent a very real understanding, though precluding
anything more definite. That would come with the next opportunity.

"The usual storm," remarked Mrs Sewin, looking up, as a low, heavy boom
sounded from a black pile of cloud beyond the river valley. "We get one
nearly every day now, and, oh dear, I never can get used to them,
especially at night."

"Pooh!" said the Major. "There's no harm in them, and we've got two new
conductors on the house. We're right as trivets, eh, Glanton?"

"Absolutely, I should say," I answered. We had completed our stroll and
had just returned to the house. It would soon be dinner time and
already was almost dark.

We were very merry that evening I remember. The Major, glad of someone
else to talk to, was full of jokes and reminiscences, while I, happy in
the consciousness of the presence beside me, joined heartily in the old
man's mirth, and we were all talking and laughing round the table as we
had never talked and laughed before. Only Falkner was sulky, and said
nothing; which was rather an advantage, for his remarks would certainly
have been objectionable had he made any. Then suddenly in the middle of
some comic anecdote, came a crash which seemed to shake the house to its
very foundations, setting all the glasses and crockery on the table
rattling. Mrs Sewin uttered a little scream.

"Mercy! We're struck!" she gasped.

"Not we," returned the Major. "But that was a blazer, by Jingo!"

"Pretty near," growled Falkner.

"Oh, it's horrid," said Mrs Sewin, "and there's no getting away from
it."

"No, there isn't," I said. "If you were in London now you might get
away from it by burrowing underground. I knew a man there whose wife
was so mortally scared of thunder and lightning that whenever a storm
became imminent she used to make him take her all round the Inner
Circle. She could neither see nor hear anything of it in the
Underground train."

"That was ingenious. Did you invent that story, Mr Glanton?" said
Edith Sewin, mischievously.

A