At length the rope end was dragged through the last cruel loop, and Bruce Trevor was free. Emmie, with thankful delight, threw her arms round the neck of her brother, and, for the first time on that terrible day, burst into a flood of tears. Her brother feebly returned her embrace, and wept like a child. Emmie was surprised, and even alarmed, at the emotion to which Bruce Trevor gave way. Had it been Vibert who had wept--Vibert, ever impulsive, and without any self-control--Emmie would neither have wondered nor feared; but that Bruce, the firm Bruce, who since childhood had never been known to shed a tear--that Bruce should actually sob, showed that even his powers of endurance must have been overstrained at last, and that his strong nerves had been shaken by torture, either physical or mental. And suffering was written on the young man's face; not only in the ghastly wound which Harper's blow had left on his brow, but in the hollow eyes, the haggard cheek, the lips which had lost for a while their expression of calm decision. Bruce had secretly prided himself on his firmness; he had to be taught that no merely human courage can be proof against every trial, as his sister had been taught that human weakness can be raised into heroism by the power of faith and prayer. But soon the strong will struggled against human infirmity. Mastering his emotion by a convulsive effort, Bruce was the first to speak. "How came you here? who is with you?" he asked. "No one is with me; I think that God led me here," was Emmie's reply. "He led you indeed," murmured Bruce. "The cords were cutting into my flesh, my position was torture; another half-hour and reason or life must have given way. But for you to come alone, in the storm, and to such a place as this, is scarcely less than a miracle--you, Emmie, who dreaded the lightning!" "Blessed was the lightning! it did His bidding; it made a way for me to enter and save you," cried Emmie. "But for that crashing bolt you would never have seen me alive," said Bruce. As he spoke, the young man turned his head with a quick, uneasy movement, like a sentinel at night who detects the sound of a stealthy tread. Emmie saw the movement, and her heart throbbed fast with sympathetic alarm. Could the forgers be returning to make sure of their victim? But the apprehension expressed in the face of Bruce arose from a different cause. "Mark you not that smell of burning?" he said. "See the smoke rolling in through the doorway; the bolt has set the house on fire; we must make our escape before the building be wrapped in flames!"