"Let us go and see the old house burn," she whispered. "If it is a funeral pyre of the past, let us watch the dying embers. Perhaps my fears will vanish with them."
He did not refuse her; so Emma relieved her of her veil and threw about her a long cloak, and together they stepped into the street. The glare that struck their faces made them shrink, but they soon overcame the first shock and hastened on.
The town was in a tumult, but they saw nothing save the flaming skeleton of their home, with the gaunt outlines of the poplars shining vividly in the scarlet glow.
As they drew near to it the front of the house fell in, and Hermione, with a shriek, pointed to the corner where the laboratory had been.
"My father! my father! See! see! he is there! He is denouncing me! Look at his lifted arms! It is a judgment, it is——"
Her words trailed off in choking horror. They all looked, and they all saw the figure of an old man writhing against a background of flame. Was it a spectre? Was it the restless ghost of the old professor showing itself for the last time in the place of his greatest sin and suffering? Even Edgar was silent, and Frank refused to say, while the girls, sinking upon their knees with inarticulate moans and prayers, seemed to beg for mercy and cry against this retribution, when suddenly Hermione felt herself clasped in two vigorous arms, and a voice exclaimed in the husky accents of great joy:
"You are here! You are here! You are not burned! O my dear young mistresses, my dear, dear young mistresses!"
Hermione, pushing the weeping Doris back, pointed again towards the toppling structure, and cried:
"Do you see who is there? My father, Doris, my father! See how he beckons and waves, see——"
Doris, startled, gave a cry in her turn: