“What is his own of them, does monsieur think?--that a tipsy boor assists the cause of freedom? Monsieur, my master is not blind, save perhaps in thinking others so. _Saint Sacrement_! the sun has gone out! It was as if a wave of cloud extinguished it.” “Never mind that. In thinking others blind to what, girl?” “I must not say--indeed, I must not say.” “Is this to be a saint--to damn with innuendo? Fie, then, Nicette!” “Monsieur, do not be angry. Oh, I will tell you whatever you will. This club then, it is a pretext, one cannot but assume--a veil to hide perilous sentiments, not of politics, but of----” “But of what?” The girl hung her head. The increasing gloom without lent its shadow to her face. “Monsieur has no mercy,” she whispered. “But of what, Nicette? Tell me.” “Monsieur--of intrigue.” As if the very word completed an electric circuit and discharged the battery, a flash answered it, followed almost immediately by a splintering shock of thunder. The girl uttered a shriek, started to her feet, and ran to the middle of the room, holding her hands to her eyes. “I am blind!” she wailed--“oh, I am blind!” Ned hurried to her--gripped her shoulder. “Nonsense!” he cried; “it will pass in a moment. Let me look.” He could hardly hear his own voice. The lightning might have been a bursting shell that had rent a dam. The thunder of the rain out-roared that of the clouds--overbore the struggling wind and pinned it to the earth--smote upon the roof in tearing volleys, and made of all the atmospheric envelope a crashing loom of water. “Nicette!” cried the young man, frightened to see the girl yet hide her face from him. He was conscious of something crouching at her feet, and, looking down, saw that terror had driven Baptiste, the little boy, to the refuge of their company. In his panic, Ned impulsively seized the maid into his arms. “You are not hurt!” he implored. “I kept you by the window. My God! if you should be injured through my fault!” She was not at least so stunned but that his impassioned self-reproach could inform her cheeks with a rose of fire. The stain of it, could he have seen, soaked to the very white nape of her neck. “Hold me,” she whimpered. “Don’t let me go, or I shall die!” She strained to him, patently and without any thought of dissimulation, palpitating with terror as the rain roared and the frequent detonations shook the house. In the first of his apprehension he thought of nothing compromising in the situation--of nothing but his own concern and the girl’s pitiful state. Presently, in a lull, he heard her exclaiming-- “Mother of God! if I were to go blind!” “Don’t suggest such a thing!” he cried in anguish. “Would you be sorry--even for poor Nicette, monsieur?” “Sorry, child! Look up, in God’s name!” She raised her face. Her lids flickered and opened. “Can you see?” he asked, distraught and eager.