half led, half lifted her through the French window to the veranda and
the ground, and locking her arm in his, ran quickly forward a hundred
feet from the house, stopping at last beneath a large post oak where
there was a rustic seat into which she sank. "You're safe now, I
reckon," he said grimly.

She looked towards the house; the sun was shining brightly; a cool
breeze seemed to have sprung up as they ran. She could see a quantity of
rubbish lying on the roof from which a dozen yards of zinc gutter
were perilously hanging; the broken shafts of the further cluster of
chimneys, a pile of bricks scattered upon the ground and among the
battered down beams of the end of the veranda--but that was all. She
lifted her now whitened face to the man, and with the apologetic smile
still lingering on her lips, asked:--

"What does it all mean? What has happened?"

The man stared at her. "D'ye mean to say ye don't know?"

"How could I? They must have all left the house as soon as it began. I
was talking to--to M. l'Hommadieu, and he suddenly left."

The man brought his face angrily down within an inch of her own. "D'ye
mean to say that them d----d French half-breeds stampeded and left yer
there alone?"

She was still too much stupefied by the reaction to fully comprehend
his meaning, and repeated feebly with her smile still faintly lingering:
"But you don't tell me WHAT it was?"

"An earthquake," said the man, roughly, "and if it had lasted ten
seconds longer it would have shook the whole shanty down and left you
under it. Yer kin tell that to them, if they don't know it, but from the
way they made tracks to the fields, I reckon they did. They're coming
now."

Without another word he turned away half surlily, half defiantly,
passing scarce fifty yards away Mrs. Randolph and her daughter, who were
hastening towards their guest.

"Oh, here you are!" said Mrs. Randolph, with the nearest approach to
effusion that Rose had yet seen in her manner. "We were wondering where
you had run to, and were getting quite concerned. Emile was looking for
you everywhere."

The recollection of his blank and abject face, his vague outcry and
blind fright, came back to Rose with a shock that sent a flash of
sympathetic shame to her face. The ingenious Adele noticed it, and
dutifully pinched her mother's arm.

"Emile?" echoed Rose faintly--"looking for ME?"

Mother and daughter exchanged glances.

"Yes," said Mrs. Randolph, cheerfully,