with her face bent down between her hands as though she were saving
her eyes from the fire, but those bright, devoted eyes never left
Hugh's face, though sometimes they made of it but a blurred image
set in the broken crystals of her tears.

Thus, together, they heard the first rumble of the storm and saw the
white squares of moonlight wiped from the floor as with a dark cloth.
Next, the windows seemed to jump at them and jump away. "Lightning!"
said Hugh. "She'll be afraid! Will Pete be able to comfort her? Will
he, Bella?" Then, because she took courage to look into his face,
she saw that his heart had been burnt all day, but that his faith,
stronger than his fear, had kept the flame smothered, almost below
his consciousness.

While the storm raged across their roof, beat a brutal tattoo close
above their deafened heads, pushed at the door, drove a pool of water
under the threshold, Hugh walked up and down, to and fro, from fire
to window, from door to wall, but not fast, rather with a sort of
stateliness. Sometimes he looked sidelong at Bella's expressionless,
listening face. At last he forced himself back to the chair and sat
there, mechanically polishing the barrel of his gun, but his tongue
still spoke the saga of illusion. It stopped when the storm dropped
into the bottomless silence of dawn. Then there was only the dripping
from their eaves. Hugh sat there, very white, his gun laid across
his lap. Bella, as white, lifted her face.

"They're coming," she whispered, and got stiffly to her feet.

Hugh moved back into his chair, turning sidewise and gathering himself
as though for a spring. His nervous hands clutched at his gun. Upon