"Oh, perfectly well," she answered. "I even think I may be happy—you know, I must start my French and English classes before long."
Silent now in part as to matters present, wholly silent as to matters past, these two went on into the night, neither loosing the tight rein on self. Swaying and jolting its way upward and outward into the wilder country, the coach at last had so far plunged into the night that they were almost within touch of the valley in which lay the Dunwody lands. Eleazar, the trapper, rode on the box with the negro driver who had been impressed into service. It was the old trapper who at length called for a halt.
"Listen!" said he. "What is that?"
Dunwody heard him, and as the coach pulled up, thrust his head out of the window. The sound was repeated.
"I hear it!" cried he. "Rifle firing! I'm afraid we're going to be too late. Drive on, there, fast!"
Finally they reached the point in the road just below the shut-in, where the hills fell back in the approach to the little circular valley. Dunwody's gaze was bent eagerly out and ahead. "My God!" he exclaimed, at length. "We are too late! Look!"
At the same moment there came excited cries from the horsemen who followed. Easily visible now against the black background of the night, there showed a flower of light, rising and falling, strengthening.
"Drive!" cried Dunwody; and now the sting of the lash urged on the weary team. They swung around the turn of the shut-in, and came at full speed into the approach across the valley. Before them lay the great Tallwoods mansion house. It stood before them a pillar of fire, prophetic, it might be repeated, of a vast and cleansing catastrophe soon to come to that state and this nation; a catastrophe which alone could lay the specter in our nation's house.
They were in time to see the last of the disaster, but too late to offer remedy. By the time the coach had pulled up at the head of the gravel way, before the yet more rapid horsemen had flung themselves from their saddles, the end easily was to be guessed. The house had been fired in a half score places. At the rear, even now, the long streaks of flame were reaching up to the cornice, casting all the front portion of the house, and the lawn which lay before it, into deep shadow. The shrubbery and trees thus outlined showed black and grim.
The men of the Tallwoods party dashed here and there among the covering of trees back of the house. There were shots, hastily exchanged, glimpses of forms slinking away across the fields. But the attacking party had done their work; and now, alarmed by the sudden appearance of a resistance stronger than they had expected, were making their escape. Once in a while there was heard a loud derisive shout, now and again the crack of a spiteful rifle, resounding in echoes against the hillsides.