l. It was more than human,--the projection of man's will in reckless
daring that defies the physical world.

Adelle always remembered receiving the child, who was still sleeping,
she thought, from the mason's arms. Clark was breathing hard, and his
face was slit across by a splinter from the window-pane. He was a
terrible, ghastly figure. The blood ran down his bare arms and dripped
on the white bundle he gave her.... Then she remembered no more until
she was in a bare, cold room--the place that was to have been the
orangery, where they kept the garden tools. She was kneeling, still
holding in her arms her precious bundle, calling coaxingly,--"Boy, wake
up! Boy, it's mother! Boy, how can you sleep like that!" calling softly,
piteously, moaningly, until she knew that her child could never answer
her. He had been smothered by the smoke before the mason reached him.
Then Adelle knew nothing more of that night and its horrors.

XLII

There is always the awakening, the coming back once more to
consciousness, to the world that has been, and must endure, but will
never again be as it was. Adelle woke to consciousness in the orangery,
where they had laid mattresses for her and the dead child. Through the
open door she might see the blackened walls of what had been Highcourt.
The fire had swept clear through the three parts, scorching even the
eucalyptus trees above on the hillside, and had died out at last for
lack of food. The debris was now smouldering sullenly in the cloudless,
windless day that had succeeded the storm. All the beauty of an early
spring morning in California rioted outside, insulting the bereaved
woman with its refreshment and joy. It was on mornings like this after a
storm that Adelle loved the place most. She would take "Boy" and ramble
through the fragrant paths. For then Nature, like a human being, having
thrown off its evil mood, tries by caresses and sweet smiles to win
favor again....

Adelle lay there this golden morning, one arm around the little figure
of her dead child, staring at the pool outside which was dappled with
sunshine, at the ghastly wreck of her great house--not thinking, perhaps
not even feeling acutely--aware merely of living in a void, the
shattered fragments of her old being all around her. How long she might
have lain there one cannot tell: she felt that she should be like this
always, numbed in the presence of life and light. They brought her food
and clothes, and sai