The lamp at her feet painted the tensely poised young body and
bloodless face with quaint, stagey shadows.

Victor's glance ranged the cheerless room.

"I think you understand me," he said.

She might have been a waxwork dummy out of Madame Tussaud's.

A white blaze of madness transfigured Victor's countenance. He took one
step toward Sofia.

In movements so precisely coordinated that they seemed one and
instantaneous, the girl stooped, caught up the lamp, and threw it with all
her might. Victor ducked his head. The lamp sailed on, described a
descending curve through the open doorway into the well of the staircase,
struck, and exploded. In the clutches of the maniac, Sofia was aware of the
lurid glare, momentarily gaining strength, that filled the rectangle of the
doorway.

In through this last, while iron hands tightened on her throat and
consciousness grew dark with closing shadows, a man's shape passed, then
another....

The grip on her throat grew lax, the hands left it free. She reeled, but
somebody caught her up and bore her swiftly from the room, leaving two who
fought together like beasts on the floor, locked in each other's arms,
rolling and squirming, rearing and flopping....

The scorch of flames stung her cheek, but she forgot that when their broken
light made visible the features of Karslake above the arms wherein she lay
cradled.

Turning aside from the staircase, Karslake bore her to the ladder leading
to the skylight, whose broken glass crunched beneath his heels at every
step.

In the open air he pulled up for a moment's rest, but continued to hold
Sofia in his arms. The wind raved about them, buffeted them, tore their
breath away, rain pelted them like birdshot; but they clung to each other
and were unaware of reason for complaint.

Presently, however, Karslake remembered, and anxiously endeavoured to
disengage from these tenacious arms.

"Let me go, dearest," he muttered. "I must go back--I left your father to
take care of Victor, and--"

As if evoked by his very solicitude Lanyard emerged from the skylight
hatch, waved a hand in gay salute, then turned to stare down into the
flaming pit from which he had climbed.

After a little he fell back a pace. Then slowly, with the laboured
movements of exhaustion, Victor worked head and shoulders through the
opening and dragged himself out upon the roof.

On all fours he held in doubt, his head moving from side to side like the
head of a s