12
VERITY had never heard such a wind. Now that the last sound of revelry from the billiard-room had been hushed, the last good-night spoken, the last light extinguished, the gale seemed to have taken possession of the castle, filling the labyrinthine passages with its sound and fury. The outer air was shrill with a thousand crying voices; the chimney rumbled as with the passage of a train; windows rattled and doors strained. Water was gurgling all about, and every lull in the tempest was a symphony of gutters spouting and the savage lash of the rain.
Long he had lain awake in the high four-poster, watching the firelight flicker on the old black wainscot and listening to the clamour of the storm reverberating as from a sounding-board against the emptiness and silence about him. A long ar
