I kissed her tenderly, and bade her narrate the circumstances of John's attack.
It seemed that after supper they had gone upstairs into the music-room, and he had himself proposed that they should walk thence into the picture-gallery, where they would better he able to see the lightning, which was then particularly vivid.

The picture-gallery at Royston is a very long, narrow, and rather low room, running the whole length of the south wing, and terminating in a large Tudor oriel or flat bay window looking east.

In this oriel they had sat for some time watching the flashes, and the wintry landscape revealed for an instant and then plunged into outer blackness.

The gallery itself was not illuminated, and the effect of the lightning was very fine.
There had been an unusually bright flash accompanied by that single reverberating peal of thunder which I had previously noticed.

Constance had spoken to my brother, but he had not replied, and in a moment she saw that he had swooned.