“And you have to bear the consequences!” Juliet’s voice was quick with sympathy.  “But that’s too bad!”

“I’m used to it,” said Green, and laughed.  “How are you getting on?  Enjoying life at the Court?”

Juliet smiled.  “Do you know—­I am rather?  They have been very good to me.”

“So far,” said Green.  “Are you still on probation?”

“The week is up to-morrow,” she told him.

“And you’re staying on—­of course?”

She looked at him.  “Don’t you want me to stay on?”

“You know my sentiments,” said Green.

A sudden vivid flash rent the gloom over them, and Juliet caught her breath.  There followed a burst of thunder that seemed to shake the very foundation of the earth.

She tried to break into a hobbling run, but he held her back.  “Better not.  You’ll only hurt yourself.  It isn’t raining yet.  You’re not nervous?”

She laughed a little, breathlessly.  “I don’t admit it.  I should never dare to show the white feather in your presence.  Oh, look at that!” She shrank in spite of herself as another intolerable flare darted across the sky.

“We’re nearly in,” said Green, but his words were drowned in such a volume of sound as made further speech impossible.  He awoke to the fact that Juliet was clinging to his arm with both hands, and in a second his free hand was on the top of them holding them tightly.

The thunder rolled away, and a deeper darkness fell.  Great drops of rain began to splash around them.

“Quick!” gasped Juliet.  “We can’t—­possibly—­reach the house now.  There is an arbour—­by the garden gate.  Let’s go there!”

He turned off the road on to a side-path that led to a shrubbery.  The rush and roar of the coming rain was sweeping up from the sea.  Juliet pressed forward.

Again a jagged line of light gleamed before them.  Again the thunder crashed.  They found the little gate and the arbour beyond.

“Thank goodness!” gasped Juliet.

She stumbled at the step of the summer-house, and he thrust an arm forward to catch her.  He almost lifted her into shelter.  The darkness within was complete.  She leaned upon him, trembling.

“You’re not hurt?” he said.

“No, not hurt, only—­shaken—­and—­and—­stupid,” she answered, on the verge of tears.

His arm still held her.  It closed about her, very surely, very steadily.  He did not utter a word.

The rain swept down in a torrent, as if the skies had opened.  Great hail-stones beat upon the laurels around them with tropical violence.  The noise of the downpour seemed vaster, more overwhelming, even than the thunder.

Juliet was palpitating from head to foot.  She leaned upon the supporting arm, her eyes closed against the leaping lightning, her two hands pressed hard upon her breast.  Columbus crouched close to her, shivering.

And ever the man’s arm drew her nearer, nearer, till she felt the strong beating of his heart.  The storm raged on about them, but they two stood, as it were, alone, wrapped at its very centre in a great silence.  For minutes they neither moved nor spoke.