‘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.
‘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.
‘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?’
IN a few days Madge received the following letter:—
‘MY DEAREST MADGE,—I do not know how to write to you. I have begun a dozen letters but I cannot bring myself to speak of what lies before me, hiding the whole world from me. Forgiveness! how is any forgiveness possible? But Madge, my dearest Madge, remember that my love is intenser than ever. What has happened has bound you closer to me. I _implore_ you to let me come back. I will find a thousand excuses for returning, and we will marry. We had vowed marriage to each other and why should not our vows be fulfilled? Marriage, marriage _at once_. You will not, you _cannot_, no, you _cannot_, you must see you cannot refuse. My father wishes to make this town his headquarters for ten days. Write by return for mercy’s sake.—Your ever devoted