Beadle's Dime Library, Vol. III, No. 31

Museum Catalog Note "The Flash of Lightning" by Albert W. Aiken opens with a violent September storm in 1850s New York. A newsboy named Daniel Catterton discovers his impoverished mother dead, leaving him responsible for an infant. Desperate for funds, he spies on his neighbor Christine, a young woman renting the front room. Christine is visited by Loyal Tremaine, a wealthy man awaiting divorce so he can marry her; he leaves his Fifth Avenue address written on an ace of spades card. Shortly after, Walter Averill—Christine's estranged husband, a returned sailor—discovers her hiding place. Learning of her affair and finding Tremaine's address, Averill threatens to hunt down his wife's lover. The narrative alternates between the boy's contemplated theft and the domestic melodrama unfolding in the rented room.