"Try opposite. They're still at home. The wind was the other way, you see."
The young man sped up to the site of his former home. One look at the black ruin sickened though it fascinated him. In that old-fashioned house on the hill he had lived since infancy. Indeed, he had known no other home, no other parent save the eccentric old professor, his uncle. On Thursday, the body of Prof. Arnold had been carried away and laid in another resting-place. Tonight the old home smoldered before him, a heap of blackening embers, wearing no vestige of resemblance to its beloved familiar contours. But little time was given him for meditation now.
"Oh, Mr. Robert!"
He felt his hands seized in a warm, strong grasp, which did not quickly loosen.
"Oh, Mr. Robert!" repeated Bertha, drawing him into the doorway of the bake-shop and beginning to cry. "I thought you were burned in the fire. Where have you been all the time?"
"Only at Miss Barlow's. How did it happen?"
"It was soon after you left. The library took fire. I heard Sire barking and ran down to find out what was the matter, when what should I see but the room full of smoke."
"Ellen is safe, I hope?"
"Ellen went out. We haven't seen her yet. But if it hadn't been for Sire——"
They had gone inside the shop and the great St. Bernard jumped up and fondled his young master joyfully, but again with that strange undertone in his barking, as of one who had a tale to tell, if only stupid men folk could understand it.