"We are in His hands," she said, "and nothing can be as terrible as what was threatened us by that vile man. The boy is safe. I have the help of your presence. We must kill imagination with work." He looked about him again, doubtfully. "Work?" he questioned. "Have we the chance to work?" "Isn't it obvious," she said. "That is a courtyard. Above the ruins which brim it is the sky. If we use our strength and time to pluck a way through that to life again, we shall, at least, not think." He paced forward a yard or two and examined the heaped wreckage of plaster, wooden beams, and stones. He hesitated. "If we disturb it, there is just a chance of making our situation worse," he hazarded. She shook her head. "No," she said significantly. "Not worse. God might answer us that way, and save us suspense. And we shall, at any rate, have defied Fate to the end." "Yes," he said. "In that I am with you; we will do our best--to the last. And if God's purpose falls upon us quickly, Claire, I thank Him here and now that He has permitted me to share this bitter cup with you, instead of draining that more bitter one which threatened an hour ago. At least I am not leaving you in Landon's hands, alone." "And I am not helpless while they work their vile wills upon you," she answered. "Fate has been cruel enough, but she has spared us that. The end? That is still her mystery. Let us forget it." He smiled. "There is much I can remember which will spare me that. What you have been and done for me these last wild days--my memory will occupy itself with that and hope--while I work to make hope true." And then, still smiling as if he had plumbed the eyes of Hope and found in them an answering smile, he laid the lantern on the flags and put his hands upon the barrier of ruin which faced him. He toiled vigorously but with caution. As he rolled the larger blocks from their resting-place, he was quick to notice and to support the beams or flagstones which they had buttressed with their weight. And he used the first plank which tumbled out of the chaos as a lever upon its fellows. At his feet Claire worked vigorously, sweeping out the plaster which filled the openings as he made them, rolling aside the unseated stones to give him room, lending her lesser strength to aid his, when some task was trying his powers to the utmost. For a couple of hours they toiled silently, and a gap had been hewn into the debris--a gap which seemed to be ceaselessly filled as the accumulations rolled into it from above, but an opening, nevertheless, which spoke of progress, which showed a reward for effort, which even pictured, faintly and indistinctly, a vision of hope. If their strength lasted? Was there not a chance, a tiny, elusive, but possible chance?