ing the face which had now reappeared at its usual
place in the study. It was dark everywhere save there, and I was
marveling over the sense of companionship it gave me under circumstances
of loneliness, which some girls might have felt most keenly, when
suddenly my attention was drawn from him to a window in the story over
his head, by the rapid blowing in and out of a curtain, which had been
left hanging loose before an open sash. As there was a lighted gas-jet
near by, I watched the gyrating muslin with some apprehension, and was
more shocked than astonished when, in another moment, I saw the flimsy
folds give one wild flap and flare up into a brilliant and dangerous
flame. To shriek and throw up my window was the work of a moment, but
I attracted no attention by these means, and, what was worse, saw, with
feelings which may be imagined, that nothing I could do would be likely
to arouse Mr. Allison to an immediate sense of his danger, for not only
were the windows shut between us, but he was lost in one of his brooding
spells, which to all appearance made him quite impassible to surrounding
events.

"Will no one see? Will no one warn him?" I cried out, in terror of the
flames burning so brightly in the room above him. Seemingly not. No
other window was raised in the vicinity, and, frightened quite beyond
the exercise of reason or any instincts of false modesty, I dashed out
of my room downstairs, calling for the servants. But Lucy was in the
front area and Ellen above, and I was on the back porch and in the
garden before either of them responded.

Meanwhile, no movement was observable in the brooding figure of Mr.
Allison, and no diminution in the red glare which now filled the room
above him. To see him sitting there so much at his ease, and to behold
at the same moment the destruction going on so rapidly over his head,
affected me more than I can tell, and casting to the winds all selfish
considerations, I sprang through the gate so providentially left ajar
and knocked with all my might on a door which opened upon a side porch
not many feet away from the spot where he sat so unconcernedly.

The moment I had done this I felt like running away again, but hearing
his advancing step, summoned up my courage and stood my ground bravely,
determined to say one word and run.

But when the door opened and I found myself face to face with the man
whose face I knew only too well, that word, important as it was, stuck
in my