She did not know--how should she?--that at this very moment her prayer
was being answered, and that her lover was then, even as she prayed,
lifting the broken stone and revealing the hoard of ruddy gold. But so
it was; she prayed in despair and agony of mind, and the prayer
carried on the wild wings of the night brought a fulfilment with it.
Not in vain were her tears and supplications, for even now the
deliverer delved among
"The dust and awful treasures of the dead,"
and even now the light of her happiness was breaking on her tortured
night as the cold gleams of the Christmas morning were breaking over
the fury of the storm without.
And then, chilled and numb in body and mind, she crept into her bed
again and at last lost herself in sleep.
By half-past nine o'clock, when Ida came down to breakfast, the gale
had utterly gone, though its footprints were visible enough in
shattered trees, unthatched stacks, and ivy torn in knotty sheets from
the old walls it clothed. It would have been difficult to recognise in
the cold and stately lady who stood at the dining-room window, noting
the havoc and waiting for her father to come in, the lovely,
passionate, dishevelled woman who some few hours before had thrown
herself upon her knees praying to God for the succour she could not
win from man.
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