As so often happens toward the latter part of April, there had come a spell of unseasonably warm weather; thunder had been threatening for the last week, and now at the end of an oppressive day you could almost smell the electricity in the air.

Mavis warned Dale that he would get a sousing, when he told her that he was obliged to go as far as Rodchurch.

"Won't it do to-morrow, Will?"

"No, I shan't have time to-morrow. Remember I'm not made of barley-sugar. I shouldn't melt, you know, even if I hadn't got my mack."

Norah fetched him his foul weather hat, and ran for his umbrella.

"No," he said, "I don't want that, my dear;" and he smiled at her very kindly. "Besides, if we're going to have a storm, an umbrella is just the article to bring the lightning down on my head."

Norah pulled away the umbrella hastily, as though she would now have fought to the death rather than let him have it.

"Don't wait supper, Mav. I may be latish."

He walked fast, and his mackintosh made him uncomfortably warm. The rain held off, although now and then a few heavy drops fell ominously. It was quite dark--a premature darkness caused by the clouds that hung right across the sky. There seemed to be nobody on the move but himself; the street at Rodchurch was absolutely empty, the tobacconist's shop at the corner being alone awake and feebly busy, the oil lamps flickering in the puffs of a warm spring wind.