'Frank,' she murmured, as she bent her head towards him, 'it is
really a lovely poem.'
Suddenly there was a flash of forked lightning at some distance,
followed in a few seconds by a roll of thunder increasing in
intensity until the last reverberation seemed to shake the ground.
They took refuge in a little barn and sat down. Madge, who was timid
and excited in a thunderstorm, closed her eyes to shield herself from
the glare.
The tumult in the heavens lasted for nearly two hours and, when it
was over, Madge and Frank walked homewards without speaking a word
for a good part of the way.
'I cannot, cannot go to-morrow,' he suddenly cried, as they neared
the town.
'You SHALL go,' she replied calmly.
'But, Madge, think of me in Germany, think what my dreams and
thoughts will be--you here--hundreds of miles between us.'
She had never seen him so shaken with terror.
'You SHALL go; not another word.'
'I must say something--what can I say? My God, my God, have mercy on
me!' 'Mercy! mercy!' she repeated, half unconsciously, and then rousing
herself, exclaimed, 'You shall not say it; I will not hear; now,
good-bye.'
They had come to the door; he went inside; she took his face between
her hands, left one kiss on his forehead, led him back to the doorway
and he heard the bolts drawn. When he recovered himself he went to
the 'Crown and Sceptre' and tried to write a letter to her, but the
words looked hateful, horrible on the paper, and they were not the
words he wanted. He dared not go near the house the next morning,
but as he passed it on the coach he looked at the windows. Nobody
was to be seen, and that night he left England.
'Did you hear,' said Clara to her mother at breakfast, 'that the
lightning struck one of the elms in the avenue at Mrs Martin's
yesterday evening and splintered it to the ground?'