ng through the gate and knocked with all my might on a
door which opened upon a side porch.

Confronting me with dilating eyes, he faltered slowly back till his
natural instincts of courtesy recalled him to himself, and he bowed,
when I found courage to cry:

"Fire! Your house is on fire! Up there, overhead!"

So intense were the feelings I saw aroused in him that I expected to see
him rush into the open air with loud cries for help. But instead, he
pushed the door to behind me, and locking me in, said, in a strange
tone:

"Don't call out, don't make any sound or outcry, and above all, don't
let any one in; I will fight the flames alone!" and seizing a lamp from
the study-table, he dashed from me toward a staircase I could see in the
distance.

Alas! it was a thrilling look--a look which no girl could sustain
without emotion; and spellbound under it, I stood in a maze, alone and
in utter darkness.

While my emotions were at their height a bell rang. It was the front
door-bell, and it meant the arrival of the engines.

As the bell rang a second time, a light broke on the staircase I was so
painfully watching, and Mr. Allison descended, lamp in hand, as he had
gone up.

What passed between him and the policeman whose voice I heard in the
hall, I do not know. I finally heard the front door close.

I must have met him with a pleading aspect, very much like that of a
frightened child, for his countenance changed as he approached me.

"My dear young lady, how can I thank you enough and how can I
sufficiently express my regret at having kept you a prisoner in this
blazing house?"

Had he stopped again? I was in such a state of inner perturbation that I
hardly knew whether he had ceased to speak or I to hear.

"May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing?" he asked, in a tone I
might better never have heard from his lips.

"I am Delight Hunter, a country girl, sir, visiting the Vandykes."

Then as my lips settled into a determined curve, he himself opened the
door, and bowing low, asked if I would accept his protection to the
gate.

Declining his offer with a wild shake of the head, I dashed from the
house and fled with an incomprehensible sense of relief back to that of
the Vandykes.

The servants, who had seen me rush toward Mr. Allison's, were still in
the yard watching for me. I did not vouchsafe them a word. I could
hardly formulate words in my own mind. A great love and a great dread
had seized upo