Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/317

 "I loathe summer-houses, especially when they're like this old thing, crammed with earwigs and spiders."

"The rain is going to be heavy: you'd better come in now," I went on, without attempting to emulate her lightness of manner. I dusted the rough seat for her with my pocket-handkerchief, in silence, just as the first big drops came pattering down on the leaves.

She sat down, and I stood near the door, looking at her. "Mrs. Carroll told me your mother arrived to-day, because of some letter of yours about me."

Katherine coloured a little. "I know," she answered, eagerly. "It's awfully silly of mamma. I've been talking to her about it."

"And you are to go home at once—to-morrow—perhaps this evening."

She laughed. "Certainly not this evening. How could we? And at any rate, we should have been going in a few days. But I told mamma she was taking it all absurdly seriously, and behaving exactly like a furious parent in a novel."

"It is serious to me," I said, quietly, "though to you it may be amusing." That she should laugh in this way hurt me deeply.

It had grown rapidly dark, and now a heavy rain began, cold and sad, sweeping through the trees, very soon making it plain that the summer-house was in need of repair. From the distance there came the crying of a sea-gull, a mournful, solitary note.

"Don't be angry with me, Peter," said Katherine, coming to the door and looking out. "I know it was stupid of me to write, but I never dreamt of mamma coming over like this Why has it got so dark?"

Before I could answer there came a blinding flash of lightning, accompanied, nearly instantaneously, by a hideous din of thunder, which seemed to burst out just over us. A blank silence succeeded this ear-splitting