The time flew on. The moon sank nearer and nearer to the horizon, and was suddenly swallowed up in a craggy mass of cloud, rising and spreading upward from the western sea. It moved on swiftly and massively. Myriad after myriad of bright stars disappeared behind the hurrying edge of its pitchy mantle rolling onward, in a serrated line, from north to south. Before was the fast narrowing expanse of glittering radiance; behind the unfathomable blackness of Erebus. Fitful, but louder murmurs swept up from the sea in place of the gentle uniform breathing of the early night, and the darkling waters shook with a brisker frolic of dancing frothy combs, and dull shimmering streaks and flashes of phosphorescent light, as if exultingly waking to the dim watchword of a twinkling storm spirit. Still Plautia remained motionless, as if bereft of life. The gathering gloom of the outer air had thickened, amid the grove, into inky blackness impenetrable to the eye. The tree stems and boles were entirely obliterated, as well as the shape of the woman lying prostrate amid them, steeped in oblivious anguish. A sharp short gust of wind swayed the invisible branches above, and dashed noisily amongst their leaves; after which a lull, and a dreamy rustling, as in the calm depth of a summer night. Then came the fierce rush of a blast roaring amongst the branches and bending them over as with the flattening pressure of the hand of a Titan, whilst a whizzing tempest of rain and hail swept along in company, and made its shrill rattling on the leaves heard amidst the bluster. It made its way freely through, and fell, with its icy coldness, on to the bare head of her beneath. It roused her. She lifted her head; and raising herself slowly, so as to lean upon her hands, she gazed stupidly into the Stygian blackness which enveloped her. The roar of the storm filled her ears, whereas her last remembrance was of the calm stars and moonlight. Her mind re‐asserted itself, and recovered from the bonds of its torture‐ bed for the present, as from a dread nightmare. Shivering, she raised her chilled limbs from the ground, and, pulling her cloak around her head, she stood, amid the roar and dashing of the elements, striving to pierce the darkness and determine in which direction to grope her way from the grove. Failing in this she stooped to feel for the narrow footpath worn in the short grass. She was successful, and, assuming that the storm proceeded from the open sea, and consequently more or less from the direction of Tucca’s cottage, she commenced the tardy, troublesome, but necessitous process of following up the path, in the face of the wind, by the assiduous touch of her fingers, in a stooping and sometimes creeping posture.