destructions.

Instantly--in that throbbing, agonizing moment of her dream, just after
which one wakes--she felt a presence--she heard a call--she thought two
arms were stretched out toward her--there seemed a safety and a rest
near by; she was borne by an unseen impulse, along the dizzy ridge that
her feet scarce touched, toward it; she was taken--folded, held; smoke,
fire, the threatening danger of the cliff, were nothing, suddenly, any
more. Whether they menaced still, she thought not; a voice she knew and
trusted was in her ear; a grasp of loving strength sustained her; she
was utterly secure.

So vividly she felt the presence--so warm and sure seemed that love and
strength about her--that waking out of such pause of peace, before her
senses recognized anything that was real without, she stretched her
hands, as if to find it at her side, and her lips breathed a name--the
name of Roger Armstrong.

Then she started to her feet. The kind, protecting presence faded back
into her dream.

The horrible smoke, the scorching smell, were true.

A glare smote sky and trees and water, as she saw them from the window.

There was fire near her!

Could it be among the buildings of the mill?

The long, main structure ran several feet beyond the square projection
within which she stood. Upon the other side, close to the front, quite
away, of course, from all observation hence, joined, at right angles,
another building, communicating and forming one with the first. Here
were the carding rooms. Then beyond, detached, were houses for storage
and other purposes connected with the business.

Was it from one of these the glare and smoke and suffocating burning
smell were pouring?

Or, lay the danger nearer--within these close, contiguous walls?

Vainly she threw up the one window, and leaned forth.

She could not tell.

* * * * *

At this moment, Roger Armstrong, also, woke from out a dream.

In this strange, second life of ours, that replaces the life of day, do
we not meet interiorly? Do not thoughts and knowledges cross, from
spirit to spirit, over the abyss, that lip, and eye, and ear, in waking
moments, neither send nor receive? That even mind itself is scarcely
conscious of? Is not the great deep of being, wherein we rest, electric
with a sympathetic life--and do not warnings and promises and cheer
pulse in upon us, mysteriously, in these passive hours of the flesh,
when soul only