An instant she stood within the ruined doorway, her left hand resting on the moldy jam. Then, with a cry, she started forward--a cry in which terror had given place to joy, despair to hope.
Forgotten now the fact that, save for the shrouding of her messy hair, she stood naked. Forgotten the wreck, the desolation everywhere.
“Oh--thank Heaven!” gasped she.
There, in that inner office, half-rising from the wrack of many things that had been and were now no more, her startled eyes beheld the figure of a man--of Allan Stern!
He lived!
At her he peered with eyes that saw not, yet; toward her he groped a vague, unsteady hand.
He lived!
Not quite alone in this world-ruin, not all alone was she!
CHAPTER II
REALIZATION
The joy in Beatrice's eyes gave way to poignant wonder as she gazed on him. Could this be he?