He felt her broken
heart beat against his own; he was conscious of a depth of feeling her
rival had never awakened in him. The possibility of Teresa loving him
had never occurred to his simple nature. He bent his head and kissed
her. She was frightened, and unloosed her clinging arms; but he retained
her hand, and said, "We will leave this accursed place, and you shall
go with me as you said you would; nor need you ever leave me, unless you
wish it."

She could hear the beating of her own heart through his words; she
longed to look at the eyes and lips that told her this, and read the
meaning his voice alone could not entirely convey. For the first time
she felt the loss of her sight. She did not know that it was, in this
moment of happiness, the last blessing vouchsafed to her miserable life.

A few moments of silence followed, broken only by the distant rumor of
the conflagration and the crash of falling boughs.

"It may be an hour yet," he whispered, "before the fire has swept a path
for us to the road below. We are safe here, unless some sudden current
should draw the fire down upon us. You are not frightened?" She pressed
his hand; she was thinking of the pale face of Dunn, lying in the
secure retreat she had purchased for him at such a sacrifice. Yet
the possibility of danger to him now for a moment marred her present
happiness and security. "You think the fire will not go north of where
you found me?" she asked softly.

"I think not," he said, "but I will reconnoitre. Stay where you are."

They pressed hands, and parted. He leaped upon the slanting trunk and
ascended it rapidly. She waited in mute expectation.

There was a sudden movement of the root on which she sat, a deafening
crash, and she was thrown forward on her face.

The vast bulk of the leaning tree, dislodged from its aerial support by
the gradual sapping of the spring at its roots, or by the crumbling
of the bark from the heat, had slipped, made a half revolution, and,
falling, overbore the lesser trees in its path, and tore, in its
resistless momentum, a broad opening to the underbrush.

With a cry to Low, Teresa staggered to her feet. There was an interval
of hideous silence, but no reply. She called again. There was a sudden
deepening roar, the blast of a fiery furnace swept through the opening,
a thousand luminous points around her burst into fire, and in an instant
she was lost in a whirlwind of smoke and flame! From the onset of its
fu