Mr Armstrong, feeling very guilty, beat a hasty retreat into the hot passage and made his way down-stairs. He was a little jealous of that portrait, perched there in that cool room, with the sweet rose in front of it.
"Going out?" said Captain Oliphant in the hall. The Captain, by the way, had taken to being civil to his co-trustee, much to Mr Armstrong's annoyance, "Warm, isn't it?"
As he spoke, he casually tapped the barometer at the hall-door, as was his habit. To his surprise, the dial gave a great leap downward. Something was wrong with it evidently, for the sky was as monotonously blue as it had been all day, and not a leaf stirred in the trees. However, Mr Armstrong took the precaution to return to his own room for a moment to consult the barometer there. It, too, answered him with a downward plunge.
The tutor screwed his glass rather excitedly into his eye, and looked at the clock. Half-past three. He touched the bell.
"Tell the groom to saddle `Pomona' for me, Raffles. I will come to the stables in a minute or two and mount there."
"You need a bit of exercise this weather, you do," remarked Raffles to himself, as he retired, "to keep warm."
A few minutes later the tutor was riding smartly to Yeld. During the half-hour occupied by that journey the signs of the approaching storm became manifest. The blue of the sky took a leaden hue, and out at sea an ominous cloud-bank lifted its head on the horizon, while the sultry air seemed to breathe hot on the rider's cheek.
He pulled up short at Dr Brandram's door.
"What's the matter now?" asked the doctor. "I hate to see you on horseback. It always means bad news. Is Mrs Ingleton poorly? I am not at all comfortable about her."
"No; nobody's ill. But I want you for all that. There's a storm coming on."
"So the glass says. All the more reason for staying indoors."
"The youngsters from the Hall are out in it."
"Don't be an ass, Brandram. They are out in an open boat at sea."
"They went to the island this morning, and will have started back a quarter of an hour ago."
"They've caught it already, then," said the doctor. "Look!"
The horizon was lurid with clouds. Pulpit Island out at sea seemed, instead of three miles distant, to have come in to within a mile. The channel between, still gleaming in the sun, was struck by a bar of shadow which seemed like a scar on the surface. The two men, as they stood in the street looking seaward, could hear already the solemn hum through the breathless air, and feel the first cool whiff of the breeze on their faces, while at their feet there fell with a sudden plash a heavy drop of rain.