in a minute."

He shifted his hand to her head, which she dropped suddenly,
with a life-weary sigh, against his side.

"Now then!" cried Johnny, wildly, "don't you faint or go
into disterricks, Mary! It'll upset the boys; think of the boys!
It's only the heat -- you're only takin' queer."

"It's not that; you ought to know me better than that. It was -- I -- Johnny,
I was only thinking -- we've been married twenty years to-night
-- an' -- it's New Year's Night!"

"And I've never thought of it!" said Johnny (in the afterwards).
"Shows what a God-forgotten selection will make of a man.
She'd thought of it all the time, and was waiting for it to strike me.
Why! I'd agreed to go and play at a darnce at Old Pipeclay School-house
all night -- that very night -- and leave her at home because she hadn't
asked to come; and it never struck me to ask her -- at home by herself
in that hole -- for twenty-five bob. And I only stopped at home
because I'd got the hump, and knew they'd want me bad at the school."

They sat close together on the long stool by the table,
shy and awkward at first; and she clung to him at opening of thunder,
and they started apart guiltily when the first great drops
sounded like footsteps on the gravel outside, just as they'd done
one night-time before -- twenty years before.

If it was dark before, it was black now. The edge of the awful storm-cloud
rushed up and under the original darkness like the best "drop"