Her hands grew cold; she shook as with an ague fit.
She had been too happy. She might have known that it could not last. She had known it. In all those happy months, had she not drunk every sweet moment with eager lips that had felt, and must again feel, the bitterness of thirst? Had she not constantly said to herself, It is too bright to last?
"I was not meant for earthly happiness," she thought, wringing her hands.
The walls shook in the clutch of the blast. Noises came up from the sea; and wild voices answered them from echoing rocks and from out the hollow woods. A great wall seemed to have risen between her and paradise, with a ceaseless swing of lightning guarding the entrance.
She fell on her knees and prayed, one of those terrible, voiceless prayers when the heart strains upward, but utters no petition, because it dares not think what it fears or what it desires.
Leaning exhausted then against the window frame, whom should she see but her great drenched hero striding down the road, no form but his, she knew, though a slouched hat covered his face, and a long cloak wrapped him from neck to heel.
In a flash, the great wall changed its front, and now shut her inside paradise. She ran joyfully downstairs to open the door, and caught the wind and rain in her face, but caught also with them a smile.
"Where is Mr. Lewis?" she asked, thinking of that gentleman by a happy inspiration.
Mr. Granger stepped in and shook himself like a half-drowned Newfoundland dog. "Mr. Lewis stopped to drink General Sinclair's health. He will come down in the next train."
"General?"