The vicar in front of them turned and waved his hand to them in laughing despair, then hurried after the others, evidently with a view of performing for them the same office Elsmere had just performed for Catherine.
Robert and his companion struggled on for a while in a breathless silence against the deluge, which seemed to beat on them from all sides.
He walked behind her, sheltering her by his tall form, and his big umbrella, as much as he could.

His pulses were all aglow with the joy of the storm.

It seemed to him that he rejoiced with the thirsty grass over which the rain-streams were running, that his heart filled with the shrunken becks as the flood leapt along them.

Let the elements thunder and rave as they pleased.

Could he not at a word bring the light of that face, those eyes, upon him?
Was she not his for a moment in the rain and the solitude, as she had never been in the commonplace sunshine of their valley life?
Suddenly he heard an exclamation and saw her run on in front of him.
What was the matter?
Then he noticed for the first time that Rose far ahead was still walking in her cotton dress.