"Reuben," I urged, "_do_ go for the doctor; I'll do everything for your father that I can, but we must have a good physician at once. Go in your buggy as fast as you can drive in the dark--can't you take a lantern?--and bring the doctor with you. First tell him what has happened, so that he can bring the proper remedies. Be a man, Reuben; much depends on you to-night." Within five minutes I heard the swift feet of Dapple splash out upon the road. The night was growing still and close, and the gusts occurred at longer intervals. The murky cloud had covered the sky, utterly obscuring the moonlight, and there was a steady and heavy fall of rain. After Reuben had gone, a terrible sense of isolation and helplessness oppressed me. I remembered strange tales of lightning and its effects that I had heard. Would the mother and her two daughters survive? Was Mr. Yocomb seriously ill? But I found that the anxiety which tortured me most was in behalf of the one who gave the best promise of speedy recovery; and it was my chief hope that she would remain quietly where I had left her till the physician arrived. I had pretended to a far greater knowledge than I possessed, since in truth I had had very little experience in illness. If Miss Warren should leave the parlor, and thus learn that the farmhouse might become the scene of an awful tragedy, the effect upon her would probably be disastrous in the extreme. These and like thoughts were coursing swiftly through my mind as I waited upon Mr. Yocomb, and sought to give him relief. "Ice!" he gasped; "it's in cellar." I snatched up the candle that Reuben had left burning on the hall-table, and went for it. The place was strange, and I was not as quick and deft as many others would have been, and so was absent some moments. Great was my surprise and consternation when I returned, for Miss Warren stood beside Mr. Yocomb, holding his head. "Why are you here?" I asked, and my tone and manner betokened deep trouble. "I'm better," she said, quietly and firmly. "Miss Warren," I remonstrated, "I won't answer for the consequences if you don't go back to the parlor and remain there till the doctor comes. I know what I'm about." "You don't look as if master of the situation. You are haggard--you seem half desperate--" "I'm anxious about you, and if--" "Mr. Morton, you are far more anxious about others. I've had time to think. A swoon is not such a desperate affair. You guessed rightly--a thunderstorm prostrates me, but as it passes I am myself again." After aiding Mr. Yocomb to recline feebly on the lounge, she came to the table where I was breaking the ice, and said, in a low tone: "Something very serious has happened." I could not look at her. I dared not to speak even, for I was oppressed with the dread of a worse tragedy. With her morbid fear of lightning she might almost lose her reason if now, in her weak, unnerved condition, she saw its effect on Mrs. Yocomb and Adah.