times as
ours." His words seemed to them prophetic later on for their pleasure
was destined to be even briefer than they had anticipated. The hotel
at which they were staying was being painted, Erica had a room on the
second floor, but Raeburn had been put at the top of the house. They had
just returned from a long drive and were quietly sitting in Erica's room
writing letters, thinking every moment that the gong would sound for
the six-o'clock TABLE D'HOTE, when a sound of many voices outside made
Raeburn look up. He went to the window.

"Haloo! A fire engine!" he exclaimed.

Erica hastily joined him; a crowd was gathering beneath the window,
shouting, waving, gesticulating.

"Why, they are pointing up here!" cried Erica. "The fire must be here!"

She rushed across the room and opened the door; the whole place was in
an uproar, people rushing to and fro, cries of "FEUER! FEUER!" a waiter
with scared face hurrying from room to room with the announcement in
broken English, "The hotel is on fire!" or, sometimes in his haste and
confusion, "The fire is on hotel!" For a moment Erica's heart stood
still; the very vagueness of the terror, the uncertainty as to the
extent of the danger or the possibility of escape, was paralyzing. Then
with the natural instinct of a book lover she hastily picked up two or
three volumes from the table and begged her father to come. He made her
put on her hat and cloak, and shouldering her portmanteau, led the way
through the corridors and down the staircase, steadily forcing a passage
through the confused and terrified people, and never pausing for an
instant, not even asking the whereabouts of the fire, till he had got
Erica safely out into the little platz and had set down her portmanteau
under one of the trees.

They looked up then and saw that the whole of the roof and the attics of
the hotel were blazing. Raeburn's room was immediately below and was in
great danger. A sudden thought seemed to occur to him, a look of dismay
crossed his face, he felt hurriedly in his pocket.

"Where did I change my coat, Erica?" he asked.

"You went up to your room to change it just before the drive," she
replied.

"Then, by all that's unlucky, I've left in it those papers for
Hasenbalg! Wait here; I'll be back in a minute."

He hurried off, looking more anxious than Erica had ever seen him look
before. The papers which he had been asked to deliver to Herr Hasenbalg
in no way concerned him, but th