laugh, and ran to the door.
Scarcely understanding her own nervousness, but finding relief in rapidmovement, Rose flew lightly up the staircase. The major's study, whereshe had been writing letters, during his absence, that morning, was atthe further end of a long passage, and near her own bedroom, the door ofwhich, as she passed, she noticed, half-abstractedly, was open, but shecontinued on and hurriedly entered the study. At the same moment Emile,with a smile on his face, turned towards her with the fan in his hand.
"Oh, you've found it," she said, with nervous eagerness. "I was soafraid you'd have all your trouble for nothing."
She extended her hand, with a half-breathless smile, for the fan, but hecaught her outstretched little palm in his own, and held it.
"Ah! but you are not going to leave us, are you?"
In a flash of consciousness she understood him, and, as it seemed toher, her own nervousness, and all, and everything. And with it came aswift appreciation of all it meant to her and her future. To bealways with him and like him, a part of this refined and restfulseclusion--akin to all that had so attracted her in this house; not tobe obliged to educate herself up to it, but to be in it on equal termsat once; to know that it was no wild, foolish youthful fancy, but awise, thoughtful, and prudent resolve, that her father would understandand her friends respect: these were the thoughts that crowded quicklyupon her, more like an explanation of her feelings than a revelation, inthe brief second that he held her hand. It was not, perhaps, love asshe had dreamed it, and even BELIEVED it, before. She was not ashamedor embarrassed; she even felt, with a slight pride, that she was notblushing. She raised her eyes frankly. What she WOULD have said she didnot know, for the door, which he had closed behind her, began to shakeviolently.
It was not the fear of some angry intrusion or interference surely thatmade him drop her hand instantly. It was not--her second thought--theidea that some one had fallen in a fit against it that blanched his facewith abject and unreasoning terror! It must have been something elsethat caused him to utter an inarticulate cry and dash out of the roomand down the stairs like a madman! What had happened?
In her own self-possession she knew that all this was passing rapidly,that it was not the door now that was still shaking, for it had swungalmost shut again--but it was the windows, the book-shelves, the floorbeneath her feet, that were all shaking. She heard a hurried scrambling,the trampling of feet below, and the quick rustling of a skirt in thepassage, as if some one had precipitately fled from her room. Yet no onehad called to her--even HE had said nothing. Whatever had happened theyclearly had not cared for her to know.
The jarring and rattling ceased as suddenly, but the house seemed silentand empty. She moved to the door, which had now swung open a few inches,but to her astonishment it was fixed in that position, and she could notpass. As yet she had been free from any personal fear, and even now itwas with a half smile at her imprisonment in the major's study, that sherang the bell and turned to the window. A man, whom she recognizedas one of the ranch laborers, was standing a hundred feet away in thegarden, looking curiously at the house. He saw her face as she tried toraise the sash, uttered an exclamation, and ran forward. But before shecould understand what he said, the sash began to rattle in her hand, thejarring recommenced, the floor shook beneath her feet, a hideous soundof grinding seemed to come from the walls, a thin seam of dust-likesmoke broke from the ceiling, and with the noise of falling plaster adozen books followed each other from the shelves, in what in the frantichurry of that moment seemed a grimly deliberate succession; a picturehanging against the wall, to her dazed wonder, swung forward, andappeared to stand at right angles from it; she felt herself reelingagainst the furniture; a deadly nausea overtook her; as she glanceddespairingly towards the window, the outlying fields beyond the gardenseemed to be undulating like a sea. For the first time she raised hervoice, not in fear, but in a pathetic little cry of apology for herawkwardness in tumbling about and not being able to grapple this newexperience, and then she found herself near the door, which had oncemore swung free. She grasped it eagerly, and darted out of the studyinto the deserted passage. Here some instinct made her follow the lineof the wall, rather than the shaking balusters of the corridor andstaircase, but before she reached the bottom she heard a shout, andthe farm laborer she had seen coming towards her seized her by the arm,dragged her to the open doorway of the drawing-room, and halted beneathits arch in the wall. Another thrill, but lighter than before, passedthrough the building, then all was still again.
"It's over; I reckon that's all just now," said the man, coolly. "It'squite safe to cut and run for the garden now, through this window." Hehalf led, half lifted her through the French window to the veranda andthe ground, and locking her arm in his, ran quickly forward a hundredfeet from the house, stopping at last beneath a large post oak wherethere was a rustic seat into which she sank. "You're safe now, Ireckon," he said grimly.
She looked towards the house; the sun was shining brightly; a coolbreeze seemed to have sprung up as they ran. She could see a quantity ofrubbish lying on the roof from which a dozen yards of zinc gutterwere perilously hanging; the broken shafts of the further cluster ofchimneys, a pile of bricks scattered upon the ground and among thebattered down beams of the end of the veranda--but that was all. Shelifted her now whitened face to the man, and with the apologetic smilestill 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. Iwas talking to--to M. l'Hommadieu, and he suddenly left."
The man brought his face angrily down within an inch of her own. "D'yemean to say that them d----d French half-breeds stampeded and left yerthere alone?"
She was still too much stupefied by the reaction to fully comprehendhis 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 tenseconds longer it would have shook the whole shanty down and left youunder it. Yer kin tell that to them, if they don't know it, but from theway they made tracks to the fields, I reckon they did. They're comingnow."
Without another word he turned away half surlily, half defiantly,passing scarce fifty yards away Mrs. Randolph and her daughter, who werehastening towards their guest.
"Oh, here you are!" said Mrs. Randolph, with the nearest approach toeffusion that Rose had yet seen in her manner. "We were wondering whereyou had run to, and were getting quite concerned. Emile was looking foryou everywhere."
The recollection of his blank and abject face, his vague outcry andblind fright, came back to Rose with a shock that sent a flash ofsympathetic shame to her face. The ingenious Adele noticed it, anddutifully pinched her mother's arm.
"Emile?" echoed Rose faintly--"looking for ME?"
Mother and daughter exchanged glances.
"Yes," said Mrs. Randolph, cheerfully, "he says he started to run withyou, but you got ahead and slipped out of the garden door--or somethingof the kind," she added, with the air of making light of Rose's girlishfears. "You know one scarcely knows what one does at such times, andit must have been frightfully strange to YOU--and he's been quitedistracted, lest you should have wandered away. Adele, run and tell himMiss Mallory has been here under the oak all the time."
Rose started--and then fell hopelessly back in her seat. Perhaps it WAStrue! Perhaps he had not rushed off with that awful face and without aword. Perhaps she herself had been half-frightened out of her reason.In the simple, weak kindness of her nature it seemed less dreadful tobelieve that the fault was partly her own.
"And you went back into the house to look for us when all was over,"said Mrs. Randolph, fixing her black, beady, magnetic eyes on Rose, "andthat stupid yokel Zake brought you out again. He needn't have clutchedyour arm so closely, my dear,--I must speak to the major about hisexcessive familiarity--but I suppose I shall b
e told that that isAmerican freedom. I call it 'a liberty.'"
It struck Rose that she had not even thanked the man--in the same flashthat she remembered something dreadful that he had said. She covered herface with her hands and tried to recall herself.
Mrs. Randolph gently tapped her shoulder with a mixture of maternalphilosophy and discipline, and continued: "Of course, it's an upset--andyou're confused still. That's nothing. They say, dear, it's perfectlywell known that no two people's recollections of these things ever arethe same. It's really ridiculous the contradictory stories one hears.Isn't it, Emile?"
Rose felt that the young man had joined them and was looking at her. Inthe fear that she should still see some trace