They pulled Virginia out, with such gentleness as they could spare to the encroaching flames, and a bed was instantly made for her on the damp turf by means of the men’s hastily torn-off coats. She lay there, still, white, most beautiful, with peace at last upon her tired face. Did she dream, perchance, that he forgave her? Ah! but the horror that followed--the crash succeeding crash, the hideous rioting of the vengeful flames about the poor brutes within. Some were suffocated, some jammed to death beneath the continually falling masses of stone and brick. Usurper, dauntless, rebellious to the last, struck with his iron-shod feet at the flames that made too free with him. He was so magnificent in his fierce disdain that more than one of the grooms sobbed like girls at the fate which had overtaken him. All at once a cry, piercing, shrill, terrible above any sound which had ever come upon their hearing, shook the stillness of the night to shuddering echoes. It was the one and only sign of pain that Usurper gave ere he sank to an awful death among the blazing ruins. Virginia’s senses returned to her as they were carrying her home in solemn silence and with bared heads. She tried to lift herself on one elbow, and sank back with a moan of pain; but even for that there went up some muttered thanks from the men who carried her. They had thought her dead. “Does the moving pain you, miss?” asked the lad who had been with her in Bonnibel’s box. “It hurts some,” she said, bravely. “What’s happened?” They had to tell her all about the fire, as though it were a thing new to her, and how she had saved Bonnibel. “Oh, did I?” she said. “Did I?--air yuh sure?” “Sure, miss?” echoed the admiring Hicks. “Sure? Well, I think we be pretty sure o’ that ’ere! Bean’t we, boys?” They could not say enough. One thought was making music in Virginia’s heart. “Perhaps he’ll forgive me now,” she said over and over to herself. She looked upward at the starry heavens through the broad leaves of the catalpa-trees, as they bore her up the last hill to the house, with a feeling closely akin to joy. “I’ve saved Bonnibel,” she thought--“I’ve saved Bonnibel, anyways; ef he don’t forgive me, I’ve done, somethin’ to make him glad. ’Twas awful in that burnin’ place; but I saved her--I saved her--I saved her.” She said the last three words out loud. “That you did, miss,” said the boy Hicks, who walked close beside her. “Tell her again, boys.”