The smoke still rose sombre and heavy from the roof, and about one of
the chimneys little tongues of flame leaped up as she approached. She
could hear a fierce crackling, too, of that spiteful sort made by the
burning of dry wood. The house was all of wood, and old, and it was
evidently thoroughly afire within.
She realized this as she hurried up to it. In the brief seconds of her
crossing the field and leaping a small stream that ran near the house,
she thought of Jason, so noble, so self-denying, so persecuted, so
beautiful, lying there in his little upper room, powerless from the
fever, and doomed to die a dreadful death. She thought of him, weak and
helpless, with no strength even to shrink from the flames that should
lap over him and lick him to death with their fiery tongues. All this as
she sped across the field and leaped the stream.
Reaching the house, she glanced upward, and could perceive the light of
the flames already showing itself through the upper front windows, next
the room where slept the Deacon and his wife. Fortunately Jason's room
was in the rear. Then she remembered that an old nurse from the village
watched with him, and she called fiercely on her name, but with no
response.
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