[AN ACCIDENT].
The rain rattled against the glass enclosure of the balcony, flash after flash of lightning illumined the darkness, and the crashing thunder shook the walls of the old manor-house of Linau to their foundations.
Hugo von Wangen was pacing the spacious room restlessly to and fro. The storm had been raging for more than two hours. The rain was falling in torrents, and through it could be heard the rushing noise of the brook at the end of the garden,--it was plainly overflowing its banks.
"The storm is increasing," said Wangen, and his words instantly received confirmation from an intensely vivid flash of lightning, followed by a reverberating clap of thunder. The panes in the windows shook almost to breaking, and the howling of the blast all but drowned the sound of his voice.
"You make me very nervous," Bertha said, "by pacing backwards and forwards in that manner, like some wild animal in a cage. Come and sit down with us, your restlessness can do no good."
Wangen did not heed her; he quickened his steps, his anxiety evidently increasing every minute. "I hope there has been no accident," he said. "The Dombrowker bridge is unsafe at the best of times, and very dangerous in a storm like this."
"Don't worry yourself, Hugo," Clara rejoined, leaving the table where she had been seated at her embroidery and affectionately putting her arm through her brother's as he pursued his restless walk. "Herr Kämpf is with the men, and he is so prudent he will see that nothing happens. Perhaps he has not started from the station, but is waiting there for the storm to abate."
"Clara is right," Bertha said, kindly. Since Elise and her charge had made their appearance again at supper the mistress of the house had been once more all sweetness and amiability, and had seemed desirous of effacing any unfavorable impression produced by her previous ill humour. "Herr Kämpf is certainly waiting at the station. He must have seen the storm coming up all the afternoon."
"That is just why he will surely have driven over,--it came up so very slowly, and then burst forth with such sudden fury. Something must surely have hap----"
He interrupted himself to listen. The noise of the rain beating against the glass panes was fainter for the moment, and Wangen distinctly heard the rolling of wheels in the court-yard.