He caught her as she swayed.
For a time she lay in his arms, finding a woman's relief in a flood of tears. Not until she grew calm did he speak.
"You must go away to-morrow," he said softly. "Go away and rest where you will not be harassed by all the memories which cling around this place. Promise me you will."
She raised her head and looked him in the face through her tears.
"Fred, you know why I cannot leave. Even now, with all this tragedy over me, with him—lying over there—he whom I suspected and blamed—don't think ill of me; but my heart would have been broken but for you."
He drew her to him again, held her close to him, kissed her upturned lips.
"I will leave too," he whispered. "I will come after. Will you promise now?"
"Yes," she answered simply.
When he returned to the bank, Brennan rode up at a gallop.
"Oh, a terrible thing has happened!" he cried as he came into the office. "Waroona Downs has been burned to the ground in the night and both Mrs. Burke and old Patsy burned to death in their beds. I warned her that one of these days that drunken old man would do some damage, but she wouldn't listen to me. Now there's the place in ruins and ashes. It must have burned out hours ago, for there's not a spark left, only the remains of the two lying charred to cinders."