Philip worked as faithfully as any one until all the missing were accounted for and all the houseless ones fed and sheltered. Grace had given all possible help to many women and children by taking them into her own home. At midnight, when husband and wife met for the first time since the storm, they reminded each other of what might have happened had there been no celebration and they had been in the store and unconscious of the impending disaster. Together they looked at their own ruins, for which Philip had hired a watchman, so that he might be roused if the smouldering fire should gain headway and threaten the house. "It might have been worse," Grace said. "We have a roof to shelter us." "Yes, and we may select a new roof elsewhere in the world, if we like. Perhaps the cyclone was, for us, a blessing in disguise--eh?" Grace did not answer at once, though her husband longed for a reply in keeping with his own feelings. He placed his arm around his wife, drew her slowly toward the house, and said:-- "You deserve a better sphere of life than this, dear girl. You know well that you would never have accepted this if we had not foolishly committed ourselves to it without forethought or knowledge. Your energy and sympathy will keep you fairly contented almost anywhere, but you shouldn't let them make you unjust to yourself. For my own part, I've done no complaining, but my life here has been full of drudgery and anxiety. Now it seems as though deliverance had been doubly provided for both of us--first by the sale of our mining stock, and to-day through the destruction of our principal business interest. We can injure no one by going away; if the property reverts to the charities which were to be the legatees in case I declined, Caleb will be provided for, even if he, too, chooses to leave Claybanks. What shall it be--stay, or go? Dear girl, there are tears in your eyes--they are saying 'Go!' Let me kiss them away, in token of thanks." "Tears sometimes tell shocking fibs," said Grace, trying to appear cheerful. "I wouldn't trust my eyes, or my tongue, or even my heart to decide anything to-night, after such a day. There's but one place in the whole world I shall ever care to be, after this, and that is in your arms--close to your heart." "And that is so far away, and so hard to reach!" said Philip, forgetting in an instant the day and all pertaining to it. XXIII--AFTER THE STORM SOON after sunrise on the morning after the cyclone, Claybanks began to fill with horror-seekers and rumor-mongers from the outer world; but most of the natives were invisible, for they had worked and talked far into the night. It seemed to the Somertons that they had not slept an hour when they were roused by heavy knocking at the door; then they were amazed to find the sun quite high. The man who had done the knocking handed Philip a telegram, brought from the railway station, an hour distant. It was from New York, and read as follows:--