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The tempest without was less terrible than the flames and ruin within, and
the cousins resolved upon immediate flight. But Mrs. Vaughn's ponies had
already decided the question on their own part, and tearing themselves free had
dashed down the road and out of sight just as the last fatal bolt descended.

Nancy Brume, waiting only to satisfy her conscience by informing her employers
of her intentions, had followed them, and Fergus saw no other course but
to wrap Neria as securely as possible, and with his arms about her, to half carry
and half lead her down the cliff, hoping to find some shelter at its base. But
Neria, wrought upon almost to frenzy by the scenes she had passed through,
was now inspired with a wild terror of the spot and its neighborhood, and refused
to listen to any proposition of lingering, even for a few moments.

“No, no! Let us get on. Anywhere away from this,” was her only answer
to the expostulations of her companion, and when Fergus had marked the rigid
pallor of her face, the wild light of her eyes, and the convulsive trembling of her
limbs, he no longer resisted her entreaties, but led her on through the storm,
shielding her as best he could from its fury, and silently longing to take upon
himself the double of her pain, fatigue and terror, if so she might be spared.
And still as they struggled onward through the tempest, the flames of the burning
house shed a lurid light along their path, and as they turned to look shot
upward in a torrent of fire and smoke, as if earth, refusing longer to conceal the
ghastly secrets of the house, committed them once for all to the Prince of the
Power of the Air, to do with them as he would. Then the fierce flame smouldered
down to an angry glow, and a cloud of smoke and mist wrapped the ruin
from sight.

The way was long and rough, and yet a mile from the gates of Bonniemeer,
Neria's fictitious strength suddenly gave out, and she would have fallen to the
earth but for Fergus, who hastily threw an arm about her waist, and found her in
the next moment swooning helplessly upon his breast.

No human habitation lay nearer than Bonniemeer, but some rods from where
they stood, Fergus remembered a ruined smithy whose broken roof might yet
afford some shelter from the storm; and, tenderly raising Neria in his arms, he
made his way toward it as rapidly as his burden, the blinding rain, and the approaching
darkness would allow.

As they approached the shed Neria, recovering consciousness, struggled to
regain her feet, and Fergus suffering her to so, supported her by an arm about
her waist while with the other hand he drew the light shawl more closely around
her neck. But as they gained the shelter of the smithy and paused, Fergus
looking earnestly into the face of his companion was startled by its unearthly
pallor and the vacant stare of the usually animated eyes. With a rare impulse
of tenderness he clasped her to his heart and kissing her cold cheek, murmured:

“You are too nearly an angel, for the sin and trouble of this world, darling.”

With a faint sigh Neria's head sank upon his breast, and he, not knowing
that she had swooned again, bent his own above it in caressing tenderness.

At the same moment, a man who had, at their entrance, secreted himself behind
the chimney of the forge, and thence attentively watched and listened to all

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that passed, stepped quietly through a chasm in the wall of the ruin, and with
bent head and muffled form, made his way through the storm in the direction of
Bonniemeer.

An hour later, Neria, leaning heavily upon her cousin's arm, reached the
house, and was met at the door by Francia.

“Why Neria! How came you to walk in such a dreadful storm, and where
is the carriage? But what do you think? Papa is here.”

“Here!” exclaimed Neria, faintly.

“Yes, indeed. He came in the stage-coach, and one of Burrough's men
drove him over about three o'clock. He wanted to go on to Cragness and meet
you, but you had the ponies, and the carriage horses are both sick, John says,
so—but you musn't stand here in your drenched clothes. Go up stairs, please,
and I will run and tell papa you are come home.”

“No, no, not yet,” cried Neria, catching at Francia's dress as she turned
toward the library door.

“I am so tired and wet, he would be disturbed,” pursued she, in answer to
the look of surprise upon the young girl's face. “Let me go up stairs first and
change my dress.”

“Come then, I will go and help you. Let us be as quick as we can. Papa
must be asleep or he would hear your voice.”

“Wait a moment, Neria,” interrupted Fergus, and drawing her a little aside,
whispered,

“Shall you tell my uncle what we have discovered?”

“O no,” returned Neria, in the same tone, “what need of disturbing him
with it? Let us forget it, or at least appear to forget.”

“Fergus, you shouldn't keep Neria now, she is very wet and will take cold.
Besides, she wants to see papa,” called Francia, from the foot of the stairs; and
Neria obeyed the summons, while Fergus, with rather an angry glance at his
cousin, sought his uncle for the double purpose of greeting him and of relating
the catastrophe of Cragness.

Half an hour later when Neria, refreshed, but still pale and worn with her
recent fatigue of body and mind, came to greet her husband, Vaughn met her
with a grave and even pitiful tenderness very different from the fond devotion
he had been wont to exhibit in the first days of their marriage. And as Neria
raised her eyes to his face she was shocked to see how it had changed since
their separation.

“You are not looking well, Sieur. Have you been ill?” asked she, kindly,
and yet with a timid reserve in her voice, painfully familiar to her husband's ear.

“Not at all, only hard at work,” replied he, releasing the hand he had taken
as he kissed her cheek. “I have found plenty to occupy my time, especially of
late, and I have only asked a furlough now for a week. I shall return to-morrow.”

“So soon?” asked Neria, and to Vaughn's sensitive ear it was as if she had
said, “It is well it is no longer.”

He made no reply, but Francia's voice volubly filled the silence with regrets,
entreaties and exclamations of dismay. Fergus standing in a distant window
with his back to the room, took no part in the conversation. He had fancied
his uncle's greeting to him strangely cold, and his manner repellant although
strictly courteous; and Fergus, man of the world as he was, was still young
enough to allow a slight he could not resent to obviously disturb his mind.

Tea was served, and under the genial influence of the brilliant table, the

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exquisite beverage, and the harmonious influence of social feeling, a certain superficial
cheerfulness veiled for a time to each mind its substantial anxieties and
troubles. But when in the great drawing-room they gathered about the smouldering
fire, and looked each in the other's face, a shadow of reserve and isolation
seemed to stand between, dividing those who should have been nearest,
and replacing the fond confidences of a reunited family by the ominous sentence,
“Every heart knoweth its own bitterness, and there is a grief with which
the stranger intermeddleth not.” Only Francia, in whose mind the necessity
of concealing her feelings from Fergus was even more urgent than the feelings
themselves, assumed a liveliness so forced as to border on levity, and without
perceiving that no one listened, no one applauded, that Vaughn was abstracted
and gloomy, Neria pre-occupied with her own thoughts, and Fergus with Neria.

The evening dragged wearily on, and at an earlier hour than usual Neria
rose, pleading fatigue, and bade good-night. Vaughn accompanied her to the
foot of the stairs, and taking her hand looked deep into her eyes.

“Sleep well to-night, pale nun,” said he, sadly. “To-morrow I shall be gone.”

“O Sieur! you do not think I wish it? You do not feel your visit unwelcome?”
asked Neria, in pained surprise.

“My visit? You are right, Neria, I have no home, no wife. Good-night,
child, do not be grieved at what I say, do not think I blame you. You have
been as courteous to me as to any gentleman who might have been the guest of
the house for a night. More, I did not expect, or if I did, I deserved to be again
disappointed.” He smiled as men have smiled while death tore at their hearts
and drank their blood, and left her to wearily climb the stairs and sink forlorn
upon the floor of her chamber, crying,

“O mother, broken-hearted mother, why did you not cast me into the sea
before you died upon its brink? Cruel, cruel life, and O most merciful death!”