The lightkeeper had seized his lantern, and now he started up the stairway. But youth was quicker than vigorous old age. Ralph plunged into the bedchamber, the door of which had been burst open by the blast from the wrecked window.
The cowering figure of the girl at the foot of the bed, wrapped in Miss Heppy's voluminous nightgown, was visible in the whirlwind of snow. She sprang toward Ralph with a cry of relief, and the young man gathered her into his arms as though she were a child.
"Oh, Ralph!"
"All right, Lorna! You're safe enough. Don't be frightened," soothed Endicott.
For a long moment he sheltered her thus, bulwarking his own body between her and the blast from the window. She cowered in his arms. Then:
"For love's sake!" gasped Miss Heppy at the head of the stairs.
The lantern in her brother's hand broadly illumined the two young people. Tobias himself was enormously amused.
"Don't look as though you hated each other none to speak of," was his tactless comment.
"Tobias!" shrieked Miss Heppy.
Lorna struggled out of Ralph's arms in a flame of rage.