She had a feeling that out of such a fire nothing could come alive. She couldn’t, anyway—if it was really She who lay here, at daybreak, in a lonely mountain-top cabin, with two gray bunks on either side—and a red fire-cheek upon the hearth.
But, no! The nightmare was too monstrous. The bunk held only a shell.
The real Una, the guarded girl, was away, far away, with her Camp Fire sisters. Why! she could hear them singing, singing their good-night hymn, before the first foot of the nightmare caught her—before smoke rushed up the sidehill and the glare burst forth in the Long Pasture:
Ah! she had loved that hymn—dearest of Camp Fire songs.
But suddenly—suddenly—her whole being became again a fiery stick, shriveling, consuming, for, watching that changing fire-cheek, the red glow upon the hearth, while daylight broadened, she realized that it was Una—incredibly it was—who lay here, in a beyond-the-beyond of utter terror—helplessness.
Una who would be put upon her horse and forced to ride further, away from father, mother—Pemrose—trapped—trapped....
“Master!... Master of the Hidden Fire!” She was feeling for the life-tie, at last—wide awake, at last—gibbering, clutching with her cold hands at the gray sides of the bunk, the outer bunk of two—with, somewhere, a memory of a red fox trapped by the roadside.
“Master! Master! Master!” Was there a Sheltering Flame? A Hidden Fire? Anything that could save a girl now—burn up the trap?
“Master! Master! Master!” She called it out loud, kneeling up in the bunk, in the yellowing dawn, catching with both hands at her breast, her blouse. “Master, help me! Save—me!”
Where did the light come from; it seemed to flash all round her, beyond daylight.