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Page 289
ing until the close-packed houses of the merchants were behind them. In a quiet garden where only the gusts of smoke-laden wind told of the holocaust they had escaped, Geoffrey and Joanna finally clambered ashore.
There was another short period of tension when the caretaker of the house took exception to two bedraggled scarecrows invading his master's sacred precincts. In the caution-engendered silence, Joanna's sweet, cultured voice explained what had happened and reoriented the caretaker's opinion. He hastened to offer what comforts were available in the empty house. There was little enoughgoose grease for the worst of their burns, backless stools to rest upon, coarse food and wine, rough garments. However, the caretaker's son was dispatched with a message to Beorn and Edwina so that the deficiencies of their temporary haven would soon be amended.
Before nightfall, they were at home, abed, and so sound asleep that neither stirred at all when the thunder and lightning, which had increased throughout the afternoon, finally gave birth to rain. A violent downpour followed, which checked the fire. Even after the first fury of the storm abated, rain continued to fall, quenching the last of the embers. This good news Joanna and Geoffrey heard when they woke and by dinner time they were sufficiently recovered from their shock and exertion to have quarreled sharply.
Each expressed no very favorable opinion of the other's intelligence, for allowing himself (or herself) to have become embroiled in so desperate a situation. Words nearly as hot as the flames they had escaped were exchanged until Lady Maud finally gave up pretending that she did not hear from the window seat where she had taken refuge and stared from one to the other in astonishment. It was incredible to her that Joanna should dare blame and contradict her lord with eyes that glowed like pale stars. It was equally inconceivable that Geoffrey's fury, shown more clearly by his pinched, white nostrils, thinned lips, and the leaping light in his golden eyes than by his words, should not erupt into blows. Most ridiculous of all, the great dog, Brian, ran from one to the other howling his dismay that his god and god-

 
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