ed glare, lighting up
the sky, burnishing the trees. The church was a mass of flames.

Charley was as pale as the rest of the crowd; for he thought of the
Cure, he thought of this people to whom their church meant more than
home and vastly more than friend and fortune. His heart was with them
all: not because it was their church that was burning, but because it
was something dear to them.

Reaching the hill, he saw the Cure coming from the vestry of the burning
church, bearing some vessels of the altar. Depositing them in the arms
of his weeping sister, he turned again towards the door. People clung to
him, and would not let him go.

"See, it is all inflames," they cried. "Your cassock is singed. You
shall not go."

At that moment Charley and Portugais came up. A hurried question to the
Cure from Charley, a key handed over, a nod from Jo, and before the Cure
could prevent them the two men had rushed through the smoke and flame
into the vestry, Portugais holding Charley's hand.

The crowd outside waited in a terrible anxiety. The timbers of the
chancel portion of the building seemed about to fall, and still the two
men did not appear. The people called; the Cure clinched his hands at
his side--he was too fearful even to pray.

But now the two men appeared, loaded with the few treasures of the
church. They were scorched and singed, and the beards of both were
burned, but, stumbling and exhausted, they brought their loads to the
eager arms of the waiting habitants.

Then from the other end of the church came a cry: "The little cross--the
little iron cross!" Then another cry: "Rosalie Evanturel! Rosalie
Evanturel!" Some one came running to the Cure.

"Rosalie Evanturel has gone inside for the little cross on the pillar.
She is in the flames; the door has fallen in. She can't get out again."

With a hoarse cry, Charley darted back inside the vestry door. A cry of
horror went up.

It was only a minute and a half, but it seemed like years, and then a
man in flames appeared in the fiery porch--and not alone. He carried
a girl in his arms. He wavered even at the threshold with the timbers
swaying overhead, but, with a last effort, he plunged forward through
the furnace, and was caught by eager hands on the margin of endurable
heat. The two were smothered in quilts brought from the Cure's house,
and carried swiftly to the cool safety of the grass and trees beyond.
The woman had fainted in the flame of the church; the