thinking of many things; the sum of them all was that Roderick had beaten him.  At last he was startled by an extraordinary sound; it took him a moment to perceive that it was a portentous growl of thunder.  He roused himself and saw that the whole face of the sky had altered.  The clouds that had hung motionless all day were moving from their stations, and getting into position, as it were, for a battle.  The wind was rising; the sallow vapors were turning dark and consolidating their masses.  It was a striking spectacle, but Rowland judged best to observe it briefly, as a storm was evidently imminent.  He took his way down to the inn and found Singleton still at his post, profiting by the last of the rapidly-failing light to finish his study, and yet at the same time taking rapid notes of the actual condition of the clouds.

“We are going to have a most interesting storm,” the little painter gleefully cried.  “I should like awfully to do it.”

Rowland adjured him to pack up his tools and decamp, and repaired to the house.  The air by this time had become portentously dark, and the thunder was incessant and tremendous; in the midst of it the lightning flashed and vanished, like the treble shrilling upon the bass.  The innkeeper and his servants had crowded to the doorway, and were looking at the scene with faces which seemed a proof that it was unprecedented.  As Rowland approached, the group divided, to let some one pass from within, and Mrs. Hudson came forth, as white as a corpse and trembling in every limb.

“My boy, my boy, where is my boy?” she cried.  “Mr. Mallet, why are you here without him?  Bring him to me!”

“Has no one seen Mr. Hudson?” Rowland asked of the others.  “Has he not returned?”

Each one shook his head and looked grave, and Rowland attempted to reassure Mrs. Hudson by saying that of course he had taken refuge in a chalet.

“Go and find him, go and find him!” she cried, insanely.  “Don’t stand there and talk, or I shall die!” It was now as dark as evening, and Rowland could just distinguish the figure of Singleton scampering homeward with his box and easel.  “And where is Mary?” Mrs. Hudson went on; “what in mercy’s name has become of her?  Mr. Mallet, why did you ever bring us here?”

There came a prodigious flash of lightning, and the limitless tumult about them turned clearer than midsummer noonday.  The brightness lasted long enough to enable Rowland to see a woman’s figure on the top of an eminence near the house.  It was Mary Garland, questioning the lurid darkness for Roderick.  Rowland sprang out to interrupt her vigil, but in a moment he encountered her, retreating.  He seized her hand and hurried her to the house, where, as soon as she stepped into the covered gallery, Mrs. Hudson fell upon her with frantic lamentations.

“Did you see nothing,—­nothing?” she cried.  “Tell Mr. Mallet he must go and find him, with some men, some lights, some wrappings.  Go, go, go, sir!  In mercy, go!”