Valentine turned and looked at Livingston.
"Then I pity you," she said, simply, but with such pathos that he himself felt like dealing out summary punishment to Black. He did not attempt to plead his own cause then, knowing that it would be not only selfish but worse than useless. She had no thought for him or for anybody or anything but her own sorrow and bitterness. "I wonder if animals can have souls, because if they do I must have been a tigress."
She laughed tremulously, crushing up folds of her gown in her hands. "I'd like to kill them, I would indeed!" she exclaimed, her eyes burning through a veil of tears.
"You think so now because you are excited," Livingston said gently, as though speaking to an angry child.
"Excited! I think I must be mad."
"You could not do them any violence, Valentine, were it really in your power. I know your generous, noble nature better than that."
But she turned away again, with hidden face, jealous rage melting into anguish.
Nobody could ever tell just how it happened. The most reasonable theory was that it caught from some of those vagrant sparks flying up from the bonfire, but deep in the darkness and silence of that night, long after the household had all retired, a little tongue of fire shot up from the roof, growing larger and brighter until its light shone across the woods and fields beyond the river.
It was Valentine who, turning on her pillow to look from the window, saw the strange illumination, and, springing up, discovered its cause. One could hear the curl and crackle of the dry boards as the flames devoured them, feel the heat, smell the rolling volumes of smoke. Confusion reigned supreme as Valentine ran through the halls, waking the slumbering people. Nobody attempted to save anything, but all fled for their lives from the old house, which burned like so much tinder. The great trees surrounding it were shriveled in the heat, and falling flakes of fire set barns and stables ablaze. The low clouds caught the lurid reflection, the river shone like a mirror, while along the horizon the darkness was so intense, so thick and inky black, that it seemed as if all the night had been compressed into it.
The Dugarres wept to see the old house falling to ashes before their eyes—all but Valentine. Its walls held no loving associations, no precious memories for her; but the force, the awful destructive fury of the fire fascinated her.