Her heart was light and warm again; she gathered the wet red shawl closer about her head. What did she care how the rain beat in her face, how the thunder roared! She welcomed the fierce recurrent flare of the lightning; kind it was to show her the rocky ways, that the red clay mire might not cling to her feet and impede her flying steps. The short cut she made took her up the slope of the hill, and she presently found herself approaching the forge on the reverse side from the door. She had hardly heard again the sound of hammer and sledge in the clamors without, but more than once she saw the gleam of the light through the ill-chinked walls, as the fire flared. As she came close she heard the bellows sighing, and the light from the walls hard by flickered out anew. She was near to the little shutter, and she laid her hand upon it. It opened readily under her touch, and she stood looking in. The interior was flooded with white light, as the bellows fostered the flaring fire. She saw the anvil glitter. A man—Jake Baintree it was—with lifted arm worked at the bellows, while another, whose face was averted, held, with the smith’s tongs, a piece of metal in the flames; it was red-hot now; it glowed a lighter tint; it glistened at a white heat, and he turned suddenly and whisked it on the anvil. He lifted his eyes as he moved, and saw before him the square of the open window, the girl’s fair, ethereal face framed within it upon the black background of the stormy night, and with the red shawl falling about her head, from the folds of which her curling hair half escaped. He started back, with the hammer in his hand, calling aloud in surprised accents, “Look! Look!” Jake Baintree turned abruptly, and his eyes met hers. XI.