in?" I asked, and by insisting learned that
an Englishwoman occupied a room in the second story.

I hate England--I hate it absurdly, in true, old-fashioned style. To me
England is still "Perfidious Albion."

You may laugh, but I hate in proportion to the love I bear my country. I
hate because my heart has always bled for the wounds she has opened in
the bosom of France. Yes, but coward is he who has the ability to save a
fellow-creature, yet folds his arms, deaf to pity! My enemy in the jaws
of death is my brother. If need be I would jump into the flood to save
Sir Hudson Lowe, free to challenge him afterwards, and try to kill him
as I would a dog.

The ground-floor of the inn was enveloped in flames. I took a ladder,
and resting it against the sill, I mounted to the window that had been
pointed out to me. On the hospitable soil of France a stranger must not
perish for want of a Frenchman to save him. Like Anthony, with one blow
I broke the glass and raised the sash; I found myself in a passage that
the fire had not reached. I sprang towards a door.--an excited voice
said, "Don't come in." I entered, looked around for the young stranger,
and, immortal gods! what did I see? In the charming neglige of a beauty
suddenly awakened,--you are right, it was she. Yes, my dear fellow, it
was Lady Penock--Lady Penock, who recognised and screamed furiously!
"Madame," said I, turning away with a sincere and proper feeling of
respect, "you are mistaken. The house is on fire, and if you do not
leave it"--"You! you!" she cried, "have set fire to it, like Lovelace,
to carry me off." "Madame," said I, "we have no time to lose." The floor
smoked under our feet, the rafters cracked over our heads, the flames
roared at the door, delay was dangerous; so, in spite of the eternal
refrain that sounded like the crying of a bird,--"Shocking! shocking!" I
dragged Lady Penock from behind the bed where she cowered to escape my
wild embraces, picked her up as if she were a stick of dry wood, and
bearing the precious burden, appeared at the top of the ladder.
Meanwhile the fire raged, the flames and the smoke enveloped us on all
sides. "For pity's sake, madame," said I, "don't scream and kick so." My
lady screamed all the louder and struggled all the worse. When half way
down the ladder she said, "Young man, go back immediately, I have
forgotten something very valuable to me." At these words the roof fell
in, the walls crumbled away, the ladder sho