The whole land, spread at her feet, was clothed in
the purple dimness that heralds day, and she exulted in its beauty. But
she noticed that Arthur, unlike herself and Dr Porhoet, did not look
toward the east. His eyes were fixed steadily upon the place from which
they had come. What did he look for in the darkness of the west? She
turned round, and a cry broke from her lips, for the shadows there were
lurid with a deep red glow.
'It looks like a fire,' she said.
'It is. Skene is burning like tinder.'
And as he spoke it seemed that the roof fell in, for suddenly vast flames
sprang up, rising high into the still night air; and they saw that the
house they had just left was blazing furiously. It was a magnificent
sight from the distant hill on which they stood to watch the fire as it
soared and sank, as it shot scarlet tongues along like strange Titanic
monsters, as it raged from room to room. Skene was burning. It was beyond
the reach of human help. In a little while there would be no trace of all
those crimes and all those horrors.
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