it so long,
has the first right to yours?"

"May!" called her mother. "Are you never coming? I can't be kept
waiting all night."

May hesitated for a moment, and then, half ashamed of yielding to the
man whose dislike of her was fast deepening into contempt, she dashed
her pen through the name she had just written, bringing her hand, as
she did so, into contact with the lamp upon the table. With a
smothered exclamation Paul bent across her and tried to stay its fall,
but he was not in time. With a crash it fell forwards breaking the
bowl, and a trickling stream of blazing paraffin ran down May's muslin
skirt, enveloping her in flame. A piercing shriek from the other end
of the room showed that Mrs. Webster realized her daughter's peril, and
the rector dashed forward to the rescue; but Paul had already torn his
coat from his back, and was holding it closely upon the burning skirt.

"See to the platform! she's safe enough!" he shouted as the rector ran
up; and, almost before May realized the extreme danger from which she
had been delivered, she was lifted from the platform and laid very
gently on the floor.

"What are you putting me on the floor for? I'm not going to faint,"
she said, with lips that trembled a little. "I'm all right. Don't let
mother be frightened."

Paul could not but admire the girl's wonderful self-possession.

"And you are not burned? You are sure you are in no way hurt?"

"Thanks to your marvellous quickness, no," she answered.

But Mrs. Webster, tearful but thankful, was at hand, and Paul felt he
could not do better than leave May in her mother's charge.

The rector, meanwhile, with one or two others, was successfully
battling with the burning stream of paraffin; and in a few minutes all
serious fear of a conflagration was over.

"Now we had better see the ladies to their carriage," he said turning
to Paul. But already they had taken their departure. "We can't be too
thankful for such a narrow escape. The platform looked all on fire
when Mrs. Webster's scream made me turn round. Can you tell me how it
happened?"

"I think Miss Webster caught the lamp with her hand as she got up from
the table. She had been reading the subscription list."

"Which reminds me that the list is burned to a cinder. But it does not
signify; people will remember their promises," said Mr. Curzon.

"And nobody but myself will know that May Webster put down her name and
scratched it out at my re