Slowly, slowly the dry heart-flames subsided. As mists rose from the ground in summer after the heat and fever of the day, so something pure as childhood, sweet as the aspirations of early youth, rose from the depths of her soul. All the treachery, all the longing of purely selfish love was annihilated. It was one of those crises when the heart sets wide its doors; when the emotion that was personal becomes universal.
The shrubbery was alive with insects, murmuring gently; and amid the foliage of the trees, the birds were preparing to go to roost. They had reached those wistful days in late summer, which by the sea fade away in evenings of gold and rose, which fade away into the sea itself. A little wind set all the leaves astir. As she looked toward the sea, a wonderful serenity seemed to fall upon her from that radiant sunset sky, seemed to light on her like a benediction from the dying day.
She turned her eyes in the direction of the gardener's cottage. Owing to a row of large trees and an intervening wall, barely more than its red pointed roof was visible. Buried in greenery, bathed in the calm light, it had, at this distance, an ethereal, unreal aspect, like a cottage seen in a picture. About it nothing stirred. But, as she looked, a trail of smoke appeared above a rear gable. This doubled angrily upon itself, then spread out in the still air like a fan. It became in an instant an all-enveloping sable mass crossed by licking tongues of red. In the midst of the sweet country, the cottage in utter silence was being destroyed, its burning but emphasizing the surrounding peace.
Rachel's feet scarcely touched the stairs. She was out of doors and crossing the lawn without realizing her own movements. As she ran, she cried for help. But she recollected that all the servants were away. André had not been seen since the evening before; and, except for Emily Short asleep in a distant wing, the place was deserted. She had gone but a few steps when a cry of horror burst from her. Annie! Where was Annie? When not engaged in hanging about Emil while he worked, she was in the habit of visiting at the big house. But that day Rachel had not seen her. Then she recollected Emil's words about his wife's habit of taking a nap in the afternoon.
"Annie!—wake up!—Fire!"
Rachel's cries were confused. She was breathless, almost falling; but despite this excitement, the wonderful sense of peace that had come to her remained in her heart like a dove in its nest.
She stumbled once as she crossed the lawn, and once her dress caught on a branch. She wrenched it free. Beyond the wall the longer, coarser grass impeded her steps and the rays of the setting sun, glancing across the grass, seemed coming to meet her.
"Fire! Annie, fire!" she called.
She was near enough to the cottage now to make out that its windows and doors were closed. She sprang up the path and the hot breath of flames struck into her face. She tried the door, it was locked; and she divined what had happened. Annie had feared to go to sleep with the cottage open; when Emil had started for the station, she had locked herself in.
In a frenzy, Rachel beat upon the door with her flattened palms. The vine over her head was fluttering in a keen breeze and all its leaves were curling. She wrenched open the nearest blind and the slat already smoking, scorched her hands. This house of old and seasoned timbers was burning like paper. She climbed over the sill.