"Oh, _I_ am not afraid!" answered Joe, with an assumption of bravery that she probably felt to be a sham all the while. "I believe it is my turn now. Dear me, how heavy that thunder is! Try and amuse yourselves, good people, while I 'follow in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor'!" and with an affectation of gaiety that was a little transparent, she obeyed the summons of the black girl who at that moment made her appearance again outside the curtain, and followed her within. Bell Crawford dropped into one of the chairs that stood by the window, and leaned her head upon her hand, in an attitude of deep thought. Leslie did not attempt to speak to her at that moment, either aware that such a course could only be painful to her, or too much absorbed in the remembrance of the other who had just passed within the curtain, to wish to do so. He walked the floor, from one side to the other of the room, the sound of his heel falling somewhat heavily even on the carpeted floor, and his head thrown forward in such a position that when he threw his glance on a level with his line of vision it came out from under his bent brows. The rain seemed to beat heavier and heavier outside, and dashed against the windows with such force as to threaten to beat them in; and successive discharges of thunder, accompanied with constant flashes of fierce lightning, crashed and rumbled among the house-tops and seemed to be at times actually booming through the room, immediately over their heads. In this way some fifteen minutes passed, seeming almost so many hours to the young man, whatever they may have appeared to the young girl who sat by the window, so absorbed by her own thoughts that she scarcely heard the muttering thunder or saw the blinding flashes of the lightning. Suddenly there was a louder and fiercer crash of thunder than any that had preceded it--a crash of that peculiar sharpness indicating that it must have struck the very house in which they heard it; and this accompanied by one of those terribly intense flashes of lightning which seemed to sear the eyeballs and play in blue flame through the air of the room,--then followed by a heavy dull rumbling shock and boom like that of a thousand pieces of artillery fired at once, rocking the building to its foundation and threatening to send it tumbling in ruins on their heads. Tom Leslie involuntarily put his hands to his eyes, to shut out the flash, and Bell Crawford, at last startled, sprung from her chair; but both were worse startled, the very second after, by a long, loud, piercing shriek, in the voice of Josephine Harris, that burst from the inner room and seemed like some cry extorted by mortal pain or unendurable terror.