“You go inside and I’ll see,” commanded the young man.
“I’ll do no such thing! I’ll go with you and see. If I go in the house again I’ll wake Miss Ella and Miss Louise up, and you said yourself that it was most important for them to have a night of unbroken rest.”
“Helen, I insist!”
“But I’m not going to be sent back in the house while you go get shot up or something, so there!”
“Shot up! The idea! It is nothing but some late revelers going home. Perhaps the darkies have been having a ball somewhere, too.”
“Perhaps, but they have no business coming through Grantly.”
There was a hoarse shout from the rear and suddenly a light shot up into the sky.
“The straw stack! They are burning the straw stack!” cried Helen.
George Wright quietly opened the great front door and picking Helen up in his arms, carried her into the hall. He put her down and hastily closed the door. Helen heard the great brass key turn in the lock.
It was very dark in the hall. She groped her way along the wall. It was all she could do to keep from screaming, but remembering her two old friends, now no doubt peacefully snoozing, she held herself in check. Suddenly she bumped square into the telephone.