For the last few days the weather had been immoderately hot, and it seemed that, their last atom of patience chafed away by the discomfort of the extreme heat, even the most worm-like among the spirits of the air had turned at last, and in an access of irritable sensibility were giving vent to their opinions, and flinging inertia and exhausted forces to the winds. Some rode upon darkling clouds that scudded across the angry heavens, colliding with one another in their haste: or, who shall say, perhaps deliberately charging one another in their tempestuous rage, making a veritable tilting-ground of that usually peaceful realm, the clash of their invisible lances striking fire in vivid zig-zag streaks, whilst the thunder of their contact seemed to shake the very earth. Others again put their whole energy into the rain, as if seeking to deluge the countryside; and mercilessly did they beat a little bowed and huddled figure that emerged from the comparative shelter of the trees, after a moment of fearful hesitation, and sped across the open, making directly for the verandah.
Paul Charteris sat within his library, deeply brooding. He appeared to be occupied at the writing-table, but for long his pen had remained idle. He found difficulty in concentrating his thoughts upon the work in hand; all sorts of pleasant and congenial fancies had hold of him. But presently a tapping upon the window-pane began to attract his attention intermittently, unconsciously teasing, till, shaking off his reverie, he fell to blaming the gardener.
"That jasmine down again," ran his thoughts. "But perhaps it is hardly Tompkins’s fault, though I did tell him to see to it himself last time—such rain and wind as this! But no, it cannot be the jasmine."
For the taps had become insistent, to an accompaniment of what sounded like the kicking of a foot against the lower wood part of the door-window—little, sharp, imperative kicks—and Paul, fully roused at last, sprang to his feet, faced about, and saw in the dim light, to his no small amazement, a muffled figure, the head shrouded in a long dark cloak. He opened the window, and was about to resent this intrusion at so private a part of the house, beginning with directions as to where the doors were to be found, when the figure darted past him into the room, with gesture and movement familiar to him; and letting the cloak drop in a damp heap upon the floor, Hazel Le Mesurier stood laughing at him.