"No," she replied with a tone and glance that, to me, were sweeter and more welcome than all the June sunshine of that day. "I was here, and you were sent." Then her eyes grew full of dread, reminding me of the gaze she had bent on the storm before which she had cowered. "The house was on fire," she said; "we were all helpless--unconscious. You saved us. I begin to realize it all." "Come, Miss Warren, you now are 'seeing double.' Here, Reuben," I said to the young fellow, who came dripping in from the barn. "I want to introduce you in a new light. Miss Warren doesn't half know you yet, and I wish her to realize that you are no longer a boy, but a brave, level-headed man, that even when stunned by lightning could do as much as I did." "Now, Richard Morton, I didn't do half as much as thee did. How's mother?" and he spoke with a boy's ingenuousness. "Doing well under the care of the doctor you brought," I said; "and if you will now help me make this dying fire burn up quickly, she will have you to thank more than any one else when well again." "I'm going to thank you now," Miss Warren exclaimed, seizing both of his hands. "God bless you, Reuben! You don't realize what you have done for us all." The young fellow looked surprised. "I only did what Richard Morton told me," he protested, "and that wasn't much." "Well, there's a pair of you," she laughed. "The fire put itself out, and Dapple went after the doctor." Then, as if overwhelmed with gratitude, she clasped her hands and looked upward, as she said, in low, thrilling tones: "Thank God, oh thank God! what a tragedy we have escaped!" "Yes," I said, "it might have been a day of fate indeed. Life would have been an unendurable burden if what you feared had happened. What's more, I would have lost my faith in God had such a home and its inmates been destroyed. The thought of it makes me sick," and I sank into a chair. "We must not think of it," she cried earnestly, "for there's much to be done still. There, I've helped you all I can here. When the coffee's ready, call me, and I'll come for it. Get on dry clothes as soon as you can, Reuben, for you can be of great service to us upstairs. I'm astonished at you, Mr. Morton, you haven't any nerve at all--you who have dealt in conflagrations, murders, wars, pestilences, earthquakes, writing them up in the most harrowing, blood-curdling style; you have absolutely turned white and faint because the inmates of a farmhouse were shocked. I won't believe you are an editor at all unless you call me within five minutes." Whether because her piquant words formed just the spur I needed, or because she had a mysterious power over me which made her will mine, I threw off the depression into which I had reacted from my overwhelming excitement and anxiety, and soon had my slowly kindling fire burning furiously, dimly conscious in the meantime that deep in my heart another and subtler flame was kindling also. CHAPTER XIV KINDLING A SPARK OF LIFE