Another thrill, but lighter than before, passed through the building, then all was still again.
"It's over; I reckon that's all just now," said the man, coolly.

"It's quite safe to cut and run for the garden now, through this window." He half led, half lifted her through the French window to the veranda and the ground, and locking her arm in his, ran quickly forward a hundred feet from the house, stopping at last beneath a large post oak where there was a rustic seat into which she sank.

"You're safe now, I reckon," he said grimly.
She looked towards the house; the sun was shining brightly; a cool breeze seemed to have sprung up as they ran.

She could see a quantity of rubbish lying on the roof from which a dozen yards of zinc gutter were perilously hanging; the broken shafts of the further cluster of chimneys, a pile of bricks scattered upon the ground and among the battered down beams of the end of the veranda--but that was all.

She lifted her now whitened face to the man, and with the apologetic smile still lingering on her lips, asked:-- "What does it all mean?
What has happened ?" The man stared at her.