I looked up. The storm was indeed at our doors. Yet it was as magnificent a spectacle as I had ever beheld. The heavens were as black as pitch, save now and then when for a moment they were obscured by a lurid canopy of dust, swept upward from the highway, giving earth and sky the appearance as of the day of doom. Now the wind wailed out in the forest, and now whirled wildly past us. The trees groaned and bent in the gale, their branches streaming out like banners on the air. Anon, all was still. How deep and awful and seemingly endless was that boding repose. Agnes shrank closer to my side, her face paler than ashes, and her slight form trembling with ill-concealed agitation. Not a house was in sight. I saw that our only shelter was the forest, and I retreated, therefore, beneath a huge overshadowing oak, whose gnarled and aged branches might have defied a thousand years. As I did so a few rain drops pattered heavily to the earth—then came another silence—and then with a rushing-sound through the forest, as if an army was at hand, the tempest was upon us. Never had I beheld such a storm. It seemed as if earth and heaven had met in battle, and that each was striving amid the ruins of a world for the mastery. The first rush of the descending rain was like a deluge, bending the mightiest trees like reeds beneath it, and filling the hollows of the forest road with a flood of water. Suddenly a vivid flash of lightning shot across the heaven, and then at a short interval followed a clap of thunder. Agnes clung closely to my arm, her face wild with affright. With a few hurried words I strove to sooth her, pressing her still closer, and with strange delight, to my bosom. As I did so she burst into tears. Her conduct—I cannot explain why—filled me with a joy I had long despaired of, and in the impulse of the moment, I said, “Dear Agnes! fear not. I am beside you, and will die with you.” She looked up, all tearful as she was, into my eyes, and strove to speak, but her emotion was too great, and, with a glance I shall never forget, buried her face against my shoulder. I pressed her closer to my heart. I felt a wild ecstacy tingling through every vein, such as I had never experienced. I could not resist my feelings longer. “Agnes! dear, dear Agnes,” I said, bending over her, “_I love you._ Oh! will you be mine if we escape?” She made me no answer, but sobbed aloud. I pressed her hand. The pressure was gently returned. I wanted nothing more to assure me of her affection. I was in a dream of wildering delight at the conviction.