his surcharged fur sparkled and set her flesh a-tingle,
while the whole room grew luminous with an uncanny radiance. Feeling
that her own last hour had come, poor Angelique crouched still lower
in her corner and began to say her prayers with so much earnestness
that she became almost oblivious to the tornado without.

Meanwhile, by stooping and clinging to whatever support offered, Hugh
Dutton made his slow way beachward. But the bushes uprooted in his
clasp and the bowlders slipped by him on this new torrent rushing to
the lake. Then he flung himself face downward and cautiously crawled
toward the point of rocks whereon he meant to make his beacon fire.

"She will see it and steer by it," he reflected; for he would not
acknowledge how hopeless would be any human steering under such a
stress.

Alas! the beacon would not light. The wind had turned icy cold and the
rain changed to hail which hurled itself upon the tiny blaze and
stifled its first breath. A sort of desperate patience fell on the man
and he began again, with utmost care, to build and shelter his little
stock of fire-wood. Match after match he struck and with unvarying
failure, till all were gone; and realizing at last how chilled and
rigid he was growing he struggled to his feet and set them into
motion.

Then there came a momentary lull in the storm and he shouted aloud, as
Angelique had done:

"Margot! Little Margot! MARGOT!"

Another gust swept over lake and island. He could hear the great
trees falling in the forest, the bang, bang, bang, of the deafening
thunder, as, blinded by lightning and overcome by exhaustion, he sank
down behind the pile of rocks and knew no more.

CHAPTER II

SPIRIT OR MORTAL

The end of that great storm was almost as sudden as its beginning.
Aroused by the silence that succeeded the uproar, Angelique stood up
and rubbed her limbs, stiff with long kneeling. The fire had gone out.
Meroude was asleep on the blankets spread for Margot, who had not
returned, nor the master. As for that matter the house-mistress had
not expected that they ever would.

"There is nothin' left. I am alone. It was the glass. Ah! that the
palsy had but seized my unlucky hand before I took it from its shelf!
How still it is. How clear, too, is my darling's laugh--it rings
through the room--it is a ghost. It will haunt me al-ways, al-ways."

Unable longer to bear the indoor silence, which her fancy filled with
familiar sounds, she un