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 Dare commented as the flames leaped up into the frosty blue-grey morning air. "We'll be phoenixes. . . . I shall never be able to express my gratitude to you; a man has nothing to say to the person who has saved his life, any more than he has to say to the forces that originally gave life to him. He can only accept, marvel, venerate, and use!"

When the fire was low enough to be abandoned with safety, they turned towards the lake, sharing a sense of freedom and poignant exultation that could only find expression in a deep sigh. "There's no sign of the boat," Louise said. "Let's walk. We can take it slowly, and it's a glorious morning for walking."

It was; but Louise couldn't deny that it would have been pleasant to have been sought out, this particular morning, to have been called for and escorted back to the Castle. She would have warmed to some manifestation of extra thoughtfulness on the morning when all Hillside knew that she and Dare were to be released from their imprisonment. Besides, she was tired.

When, hand in hand, they reached the familiar short-cut across the meadow and saw the house standing out in cold sunlight from the base of Hardscrapple, Louise felt more keenly than ever before what a beautiful home she had possessed. The broad terraces and frost-nipped hedges, the withered flower stocks, the pretty hangings behind polished plate-glass, the bedroom balcony with its tubs of