As the ceilings
were low in this portion of the house, the gutter of this roof was very
near the top of the window. To reach it was not a difficult feat for one
of his strength and agility, and if only the smoke would blow aside--Ah,
it is doing so! A sudden change of wind had come to his rescue, and for
the moment the way is clear for him to work himself out and up on to the
ledge above. But once there, horror makes him weak again. A window, high
up in the main building overlooking the extension, had come in sight,
and in it sways a frantic woman ready to throw herself out. She screamed
as he measured with his eye the height of that window from the sloping
roof and thence to the ground, and he recognised the voice. It was the
same he had heard before, but it was not _hers_. She would not be up so
high, besides the shape and attitude, shown fitfully by the light of the
now leaping flames, were those of a heavier, and less-refined woman. It
was one of the maids--it was _the_ maid Huldah, the one from whom he had
hoped to win some light on this affair. Was she locked in, too? Her
frenzy and mad looking behind and below her seemed to argue that she
was. What deviltry! and, ah! what a confession of guilt on the part of
the vile man who had planned this abominable end for the two persons
whose evidence he dreaded. Helpless with horror, he became a man again
in his indignation. Such villainy should not succeed. He would fight not
only for his own life, but for this woman's. Miss Demarest was doubtless
safe. Yet he wished he were sure of it; he could work with so much
better heart. Her window was not visible from where he crouched. It was
on the other side of the house. If she screamed, he would not be able to
hear her. He must trust her to Providence. But his dream! his dream! The
power of it was still upon him; a forerunner of fate, a picture possibly
of her doom. The hesitation which this awful thought caused him warned
him that not in this way could he make himself effective. The woman he
saw stood in need of his help, and to her he must make his way. The
bustle which now took place in the yards beneath, the sudden shouts and
the hurried throwing up of windows all over the house showed that the
alarm had now become general. Another moment, and the appalling cry--the
most appalling which leaves human lips--of fire! fire! rang from end to
end of the threatened building. It was followed by women's shrieks and
men's curses and t