half led, half lifted her through the French window to the veranda and
the ground, and locking her arm in his, ran quickly forward a hundred
feet from the house, stopping at last beneath a large post oak where
there was a rustic seat into which she sank. "You're safe now, I
reckon," he said grimly.

She looked towards the house; the sun was shining brightly; a cool
breeze seemed to have sprung up as they ran. She could see a quantity of
rubbish lying on the roof from which a dozen yards of zinc gutter
were perilously hanging; the broken shafts of the further cluster of
chimneys, a pile of bricks scattered upon the ground and among the
battered down beams of the end of the veranda--but that was all. She
lifted her now whitened face to the man, and with the apologetic smile
still lingering on her lips, asked:--

"What does it all mean? What has happened?"

The man stared at her. "D'ye mean to say ye don't know?"

"How could I? They must have all left the house as soon as it began. I
was talking to--to M. l'Hommadieu, and he suddenly left."

The man brought his face angrily down within an inch of her own. "D'ye
mean to say that them d----d French half-breeds stampeded and left yer
there alone?"

She was still too much stupefied by the reaction to fully comprehend
his meaning, and repeated feebly with her smile still faintly lingering:
"But you don't tell me WHAT it was?"