bleeding heart does not feel scratches.

"Good-night," said he hoarsely.

"Good-night," said she kindly.

And why should she not read his letter? She was his affianced bride,
bound to him by honor as well as inclination. This was the reflection to
which, after a sore battle with his loving heart, the much-enduring man
had to come at last; and he had come to it, and was getting back his
peace of mind, though not his late complacency, and about to seek repose
in sleep, when suddenly a clap of wind came down like thunder, and
thrashed the island and everything in it.

Everything animate and inanimate seemed to cry out as the blow passed.

Another soon followed, and another--intermittent gusts at present, but of
such severity that not one came without making its mark.

Birds were driven away like paper; the sea-lions whimpered, and crouched
into corners, and huddled together, and held each other, whining.

Hazel saw but one thing; the frail edifice he had built for the creature
he adored. He looked out of his boat, and fixed his horror-stricken eyes
on it; he saw it waving to and fro, yet still firm. But he could not stay
there. If not in danger she must be terrified. He must go and support
her. He left his shelter, and ran toward her hut. With a whoop and a
scream another blast tore through the wood, and caught him. He fell, dug
his hands into the soil, and clutched the earth. While he was in that
position, he heard a sharp crack; he looked up in dismay, and saw that
one of Helen's trees had broken like a carrot, and the head was on the
ground leaping about; while a succession of horrible sounds of crashing,
and rending, and tearing showed the frail hut was giving way on every
side; racked and riven, and torn to pieces. Hazel, though a stout man,
uttered cries of terror death would never have drawn from him; and, with
a desperate headlong rush, he got to the place where the bower had been;
but now it was a prostrate skeleton, with the mat roof flapping like a
loose sail above it, and Helen below.

As he reached the hut, the wind got hold of the last of the four shrubs
that did duty for a door, and tore it from the cord that held it, and
whirled it into the air; it went past Hazel's face like a bird flying.

Though staggered himself by the same blow of wind, he clutched the tree
and got into the hut.

He found her directly. She was kneeling beneath the mat that a few
minutes ago had been her roof. He extricated