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Rh "Hush: hush!" said his cautious companion. But the injunction was not needed, for a burst of thunder directly above their heads completely overpowered both their voices. An instant after, a vivid sheet of lightning filled the chamber. They involuntarily approached the window; the opposite side of the river was hidden in a dense black vapour, and the huge dark clouds were piled upon the sky like the waves of some vast and stormy sea, just marked by thin meteor-like lines of faint crimson, illuminated almost every minute by the white glare of the forked flash, while the old and massive walls of the Tower seemed to rock as each tremendous clap of thunder followed fast upon another.

"Hurrah!" cried Albert, as one roll more violent than the rest, made the solid floor vibrate under their feet. "Hurrah! the devil is taking his own in fine style."

This storm, which devastated all England, was felt in Hampshire before news arrived of the death which it was supposed to attend. The depths of its old forest reverberated to the echoing thunder, and many a stately tree stood scorched and blackening, to whose withered boughs spring would now return in vain.

The ensuing noon, Francesca and Guido were