Zara suddenly moved, as if oppressed, from her position among us as we stood clustered together, and stepped out through the French window into the outside balcony, her head uncovered to the night.
"You will catch cold!" Mrs.Challoner and I both called to her simultaneously.

She shook her head, smiling back at us; and folding her arms lightly on the stone balustrade, leaned there and looked up at the clouds.
"The link must break, and the lamp must die; Good-bye to Hope! Good-bye--good-bye!" Amy's voice was a peculiarly thrilling one, and on this occasion sounded with more than its usual tenderness.

What with her singing and the invisible presence of the storm, an utter silence possessed us--not one of us cared to move.
Heliobas once stepped to his sister's side in the open balcony, and said something, as I thought, to warn her against taking cold; but it was a very brief whisper, and he almost immediately returned to his place amongst us.

Zara looked very lovely out there; the light coming from the interior of the room glistened softly on the sheen of her satin dress and its ornaments of pearls; and the electric stone on her bosom shone faintly, like a star on a rainy evening.

Her beautiful face, turned upwards to the angry sky, was half in light and half in shade; a smile parted her lips, and her eyes were bright with a look of interest and expectancy.