Nan stirred. She reached out and tucked the long skirts of the coat
under the man's shoulders with that mother instinct at once so
solicitous, so tender. She shifted her position which had become
cramped with her long vigil. These were moments of darkness, literal
and mental. Her anxiety and dread were almost overwhelming. The
waiting seemed interminable.
She raised her eyes from her yearning regard of the still, bandaged
head with its pale features. She sighed, as she turned them in another
direction, toward an object lying beneath the shadow of a great red
willow near by. It was a dark object, huddled and, like the other,
quite still. A curious sort of fascination held her for some moments,
then, almost reluctantly, as though impelled by the trend of her
feelings, her gaze wandered in the direction whence was wafted toward
her a pungent reek of burning. It was the dimly outlined skeleton of
the station house, roofless and partly fallen, white-ashed and still
faintly smoking.
For long moments she regarded this sign of the destruction which had
been wrought.
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