No answer reached her. She knew it was useless to call, but an overmastering fear came upon her as she remembered the mad flight of the terrified horses, and she ran on a few paces over the wet grass, crying out again. Then she was beaten back, gasping, with her hands raised in a futile attempt to shield her face and her dress driven flat against her, as a merciless shower of ice broke out of the darkness. It swept the veranda like the storm of lead from a volley, only it did not cease; crashing upon the balustrade and lashing the front of the house, while the very building seemed to rock in the savage blast. She staggered back before it, too dazed and bewildered to notice where she was going, until she struck the wall and cowered against the boards. There was a narrow roof above her, but it did not keep off much of the wind-driven hail, and she could not be sure that the whole of it was now standing. The veranda was wrapped in darkness, for the lamp had blown out.
She never remembered how long she stood there. For a time, every sense was concentrated on an effort to shelter her face from the hail which fell upon her thinly covered arms and shoulders like a scourge of knotted wire. Then, faint and breathless, she crept forward toward where she supposed the door must be, and staggered into the unlighted room. She struck a chair, and sank into it, to sit shivering and listening appalled to the cataclysm of sound.
Then a terror which had been driven out of her mind for the last few minutes crept back. Elcot was out amid the rush of hurtling ice; and she knew him well enough to feel certain that he would stay in the paddock until the horses were secured. She could picture him trying to guide the maddened beasts out between the slip-rails, heading them off from the perilous fence they rushed down upon at a terror-stricken gallop, or, perhaps, lying upon the hail-swept grass with a broken limb. It was horrible to contemplate, and she became conscious of a torturing anxiety concerning the safety of the man for whose comfort she had scarcely spared a thought since she married him.
Though it was difficult, she contrived to shut the door and window, and to relight the lamp, and then she glanced round the room. Elcot's paper had fallen to pieces and had been scattered here and there, while a long pile of hail lay melting on the floor. She could understand now why she felt bruised all over except where the fullness of her dress had protected her, for she had never seen hail like this in England. The jagged lumps were of all shapes, and most of them seemed the size of hazelnuts. Then she became conscious that her hair was streaming about her face and that her dress clung saturated to her limbs. This, however, appeared of no moment, for her anxiety about her husband was becoming intolerable.