Brookes would have
written to tell him they were going! If only he could learn where
she was! Before he reached the top he found himself very weary. He
staggered in, and fell on his bed in the dark.
But he could not rest. The air seemed stifling. The storm had
lulled, but the atmosphere was full of thunder. He got up and opened
the window. A little breath came in and revived him; then came a
little wind, and in the wind the moan of its harp. It woke many
memories. There again was the lightning! The thunder broke with a
great bellowing roar among the roofs and chimneys. It was to his
mind! He went out on the roof, and mechanically took his way toward
the nest of the music. At the base of the chimneys he sat down, and
stared into the darkness. The lightning came; he saw the sea lie
watching like a perfect peace to take up drift souls, and the land
bordering it like a waste of dread; then the darkness swallowed
both; and the thunder came so loud that it not only deafened but
seemed to blind him beyond the darkness, that his brain turned to a
lump of clay. Then came a silence, and the silence was like a deeper
deafness. But from the deafness burst and trickled a faint doubtful
stream: could it be a voice, calling, calling, from a great
distance? Was he the fool of weariness and excitement, or did he
actually hear his own name? Whose voice could it be but lady
Arctura's, calling to him from the spirit world! They had killed
her, and she was calling to let him know she was in the land of
liberty! With that came another flash and another roar of
thunder--and there was the voice again: "Mr.
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