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 a thunderstorm, he decided not to try to telephone to her. He took a taxi at once for the hotel.

It was nine o'clock in the evening and the city streets of course were alight. Long, even rows of street lamps glowed behind the blur of the rain and the great blocks of office buildings rose with windows patterned here and there with light. Above them the lightning forked and thunder rumbled but the lightning and thunder seemed powerless here in the city, and buildings walled off the gale. Then there was a sudden, tremendous bolt and instantly the streets were dark; the patterns of the windows were gone and amid rumblings of tremendous thunder, the car carrying David skidded to the side and stopped.

Drivers switched on their bright headlights, and resumed their way but the buildings which David passed remained dark except where a ruddy flame burst above a roof; and between the crashes of thunder, there beat an alarm bell.

Gradually lights reappeared; when David reached the hotel, it was alight as usual. His wife was in, he learned, but she was not downstairs and he went at once to their rooms where he found the door closed but not locked and he opened it slowly.

"Fidelia," he called as he entered.

The light was burning in their living-room but she was not there. Their bed-room was dark except for the light through the door from the living room and by this he saw that she was rising from her bed. She was dressed; she merely had been lying upon the bed, without having opened the covers and he saw