Carleigh stalked off in a pet and smoked innumerable cigarettes, not under the stars, but under heavy low-sailing clouds which swept in from the Solway Firth. His mood was as sullen as the night.

He thought unutterable things, walking to the farthest limits of the park – and farther. It was near to midnight when he returned, his light top-coat dripping, for the wind and the clouds had brought with them a chill and drenching mist.

He paused in the hall. Voices penetrated from the drawing-room. The bridge game was still on. He climbed the broad staircase, gazed down upon by Archdeacons of past centuries in time-blackened frames. On the landings stands of armor, reflecting dim lights, appeared as sentinels.

He found his valet drowsing.

"Fetch me a brandy-and-soda at once," he ordered. "Better make it a decanter and two sodas," he added. "I'm chilled to the bone."

He might have added that his spirits were low, and required strenuous lifting measures. But he was not the sort that shares emotions with one's servants.

He drank the pegs when they came, dismissed the man, and was almost pleased to find himself drowsy. Had he been conscious, it would have surprised him to realize that he dropped into the deepest of deep slumbers directly his head rested on a pillow.

He slept soundly for four hours, and then awakened with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. He was choking. The room was full of smoke.

Coughing like an unmuffled gas engine, he got his feet to the floor, crept to where he imagined the light-switch was – found it by a miracle and turned it on.

But there was no answering illumination. Somewhere the rubber insulation had been burned away and the current short-circuited.

This fact of itself told him that the fire was no tiny matter. Carfen House was ablaze, and probably some of its inmates were still sleeping, unwarned, as he had been. Nina! She was his first thought. Was Nina in peril?

Every minute the smoke in the room grew more dense. It seemed to him that he would never be able to find his coat or a dressing-gown; and even seconds were perhaps precious.

Desperately, at length, he snatched a blanket from the bed, drew it about him, and groped for the door. Half-blinded, his eyes smarting, he jerked it open and a scorching blast struck him in the face.

The smoke here was hot and lurid. And he dropped to his knees and crept. One way he could see flashes of lambent flame. The other way was black as night itself. But he chose it, and half-crawled, half-leaped, questioning that he would ever be able to reach the open alive.

In his ears was the roar of a thing more ferocious, more devouring than any beast of the jungle. And mingled with the roar was the crackling sound of havoc.

For what seemed like hours the thing was ever at his heels, gaining – gaining. Weird, horrid monsters appeared to rise out of the murk to threaten and affright.

But with aching chest, gripping his blanket closer against a rain of sparks that showered on him as he fled, he flogged his flagging soul to fresh and stronger effort.

Again and again he stumbled and fell – only to recover himself and plunge waveringly, staggeringly onward.

And then, all at once, he was conscious of a cooler breath on his brow and cheeks. The smoke thinned. His nostrils sucked in greedily a refreshing, life-giving damp.

He had reached an open window and was stretching far out into the grateful mist and sea-scented air of God's wide, unconfined world.

A tongue of flame licked his blanket and ran up and out around his neck, scorching his hair. The fire was on him. It had caught up. It was reaching for him to drag him back.

He felt its withering hand clutch at his shoulder. Its fingers seared through the lamb's-wool that cloaked them – through the silken mesh of his pajama coat beneath.

Death chanted a victorious pæan in his ears, as with open arms it waited at his back. And before him something beckoned that would not be denied.

Out there in the dark it stood with wooing finger and cool, sweet breath, waiting, too. But whether it was death's other self – or whether it was life – he could not know.

His blanket dropped – a flag of flame behind him. And he pitched forward, turning and returning, as his body dropped downward into the blackness below.

And, oddly enough, as he fell there was before him a woman's face – but not that of Nina Darling. It was younger, frailer, less trained by experience, and no less beautiful – the face of Rosamond Veynol.

He fell on his back upon a slanting slate roof, jarring his briefly recovered breath quite out of him for the moment. And then he rolled, over and over and over – three times – to drop again. This time into a mass of tall dahlia bushes and the soft, spongy mold beneath.

"Not a scratch on you, by Jove!" It was the Honorable Julian who exclaimed it, in unqualified, exuberant delight, as two of the grooms who had heard the fall and hurried to pick up the fallen object, having led him into the glow of the pyre that had once been Carfen House, rubbed their trained hands over bones, joints, muscles, and sinews without eliciting a single protesting cry.

"A miracle! Thank God! Thank God!"

But Carleigh was not so sure about the scratches. He had certainly hit his back a resounding thump on that slate roof, and though he didn't feel it now – who ever did feel anything in the relief of regaining life after having calmly, or not calmly, said good-by to it – what might he not feel to-morrow?

In point of fact he was still dazed, as he might well be. He stood gaping, mute, an almost hideous figure with blackened face, singed hair, and rent and soil-stained garments.

An excited, questioning group pressed about him. Every one seemed talking at once, but the only words that made any impression were Archdeacon's "Not a scratch," and his fervent "Thank Gods!"

The rescued – every one had been got out in some shape or other – were gathered on the edge of a wood at some distance from the conflagration and to windward of it.

The main building was doomed. Even now, it was little more than a shell enclosing a furnace at white heat.

The garages, stables, and kennels were never in danger; but the head gardener's cottage had gone up in a puff after catching from a rain of sparks wind-hurled against its thatched roof.

Some one thrust Carleigh into a great coat. He found he was wearing one an hour later, but remembered nothing of how he came by it. And he had been provided with slippers as well.

He was sitting on a damp, moss-grown boulder, and a stout woman, with strands of gray hair falling limply and dankly about her face, was addressing him in piteous tones.

The reflection from the fire made the night three times as bright as the ordinary English fine day, and he noted that his companion was wearing a bath-towel pinned about her in lieu of a skirt.

Her adipose shoulders were draped in a velour table-cover, and her right hand pressed against her ample bosom a framed photograph, with the glass-side outward. In general terms she was picturesque in the extreme.

"I do hope you can oblige me with a cigarette, dear Sir Caryll!"

They were the first words he remembered since Julian's repeated "Thank God!" The voice sounded more or less familiar, yet he couldn't place it, and the picture the lady presented failed to help him.

It was at that instant that he became conscious of the great coat. In the hope of possibility to provide he ran his hands through its pockets. All he discovered was a soiled handkerchief and a bit of string.

"Sorry," he said, "but I fear I left my case in my room. You see, I came away in something of a hurry."

He didn't in the least mean to be funny, and the stout woman took him quite seriously.

"You're the tenth man I've asked," she said, "and they've all said the same thing."

"Perhaps some of the ladies – " suggested Carleigh.

"No," came the reply. "There's not a cigarette among them. But they seem to have everything else, from jewels to tooth-brushes. Mrs. Blythe, I hear, saved her manicure set and left behind a manuscript poem that would have made lasting fame for her. It's really too bad."

Carleigh, still perplexed, looked at her again. There was something suggestive of – But no, that couldn't be. The Marchioness of Highshire had the most beautiful golden-bronze hair in the kingdom.

Then he stole a look at the framed photograph. Perhaps that would help. The glare from what was left of Carfen House made it stand out as though spotted by a calcium. It was of a small, wizened old man with gray whiskers. Certainly not Mr. Telborn.

She caught him stealing the look and turned the photograph over.

"It's the only thing I saved," she explained.

"Fancy!" murmured Sir Caryll.

"It's the marquis, you know. It's my most valuable possession. Mr. Telborn adores me for my devotion to dear Highshire's memory." Marvel of marvels, it was the marchioness, then! "He says it shows the true woman. He'll gladly replace everything I've lost twice over." She sighed deeply. "But I'd be tempted to give the photograph for a cigarette at this minute," she added disconsolately.

"Let me try for you," said Carleigh, dropping off his mossy boulder. "Did you ask Mrs. Darling?"

The Marchioness of Highshire lifted her hands, the photograph with them. "Then you don't know?" she asked in surprise.

"Don't know?" he echoed with sinking heart. "Don't know what?" Her tone had filled him with a sudden terror. Could it be —

"She's burned – very badly burned. They've taken her over to Cross Saddle Hall."

"Nina burned!" he gasped. "Good God!"

"Yes, isn't it awful? I thought every one knew. They can't say how serious it is. They fear she inhaled flames, and in that case, of course – "

"Oh, no, no!" he cried. "I won't believe it."

The eyes of the marchioness lighted. Sir Caryll was so delightfully ingenuous.

"Telborn has gone for the doctors," she went on. "Sir Guy was burned, too, you know, most fearfully. It was he who saved Mrs. Darling."

"If I'd only known where her room was," Carleigh reproached himself, forgetting that it had been all he could do to save himself.

"Sir Guy seems to have known."

Oh, how he resented that! Still it was best to be silent. If there was the double meaning he suspected he would be the last one to point it out.

"She was already safe, it seems. Had got downstairs without a mark, better dressed than any of us. But she went back."

"Went back?"

"Yes. It was suicidal. Every one said so. Every one begged her. But she wouldn't listen. She had forgotten something. Fancy that!"

Carleigh ground his teeth. The face of Rosamond Veynol was forgotten again. Anxiety for Nina tore at his heart and rent his soul in pieces. Now she was doubly precious.

And that Waldron fellow! He hoped he would die. Otherwise gratitude might play a part. It probably would – and that would mean for himself her utter loss.

"We waited five minutes," his informant continued. "It seemed ages. She didn't return. And just then Sir Guy appeared. We were all women there, you know. We told him, and he dashed off at once. It seems she reached her room quite safely. But before she could turn round she was penned in. Sir Guy went to her through a curtain of flame."

"Was she unconscious?" asked Carleigh anxiously.

"Unfortunately – no. Her screams were pitiful!"

"Don't!" he begged. "It's horrible!"

"I heard some one say it was her just recompense. You've heard she shot her husband, haven't you?"

"I've heard it, of course. But it isn't true. I know it isn't. She has the kindest heart in the world," he defended.

"Where there's smoke there's always some fire," quoted the marchioness. "We've just had proof of that. Possibly she didn't fire the shot, but I'll wager she had a hand in it."

"I'll never believe that. Never!"

"And you'll never find a cigarette for me unless you try, you know," she suggested.

"I beg your pardon," he said in a lifeless voice. "I'll go at once."

He went at once, but he forgot again almost directly. He was bent on learning more about Nina. What were her chances of life? That was what he asked every one.

"Oh, she may pull through," said Archdeacon, who was helping in the distribution of sandwiches and coffee. "I hope to Heaven she will! But I'm afraid she'll be terribly disfigured. It was her face that got the worst of it. Have a sandwich, old chap? Gad, what a narrow shave you had!"

Hugh Blissmore, the novelist, burly and long-haired, was drinking black coffee. He was likewise smoking a cigarette, but Carleigh, in spite of his quest, never noticed it.

"Awful about Mrs. Darling, isn't it?" was the way he broached the topic.

"Awful!" exclaimed the writer – and was rather interrogative as well as exclamatory. "Oh, yes, I dare say! I've been thinking of the heroic side. Devilish fine of Sir Guy, don't you know! Sorry she's got to die, too! Heroism so bootless – and all that. But situation out of the ordinary. Oh, quite out of the ordinary."

"But it isn't certain that – " objected Carleigh.

"Certain?" the other interrupted, drawing his lungs full of smoke. "Of course it's certain. Hasn't a chance, poor lady. Not the smallest chance."

Sir Caryll's chin dropped and a grim, inarticulate sound came up from his throat.

"Heard anything of the cars from Cross Saddle?" the novelist inquired in turn. "Rotting uncomfortable messing about here, I say."

"Is that what's proposed?" asked the saddened one indifferently.

"Yes. Didn't you know? They took Mrs. Darling and Waldron over to the hall in one from here, and some fellows went off to Carlisle for the doctor-chaps in the other. They were to bring back some of Lord Dalgries's cars with them. They've been gone over an hour now – and no signs."

Carleigh was about to seek something more consoling in another quarter when one of the giggling girls of the previous afternoon asked him the time.

"Haven't the faintest idea," he said. "Left my watch behind."

At which she giggled in such an irritating way that he turned sharply upon her.

"That's so funny," she managed to enunciate. "There isn't a single watch among us. They were all forgotten – and we can't find out the exact time."

"And – and you were saved," said Carleigh boorishly. But she didn't in the least understand.

Just then the horn of a motor echoed from the park's main drive and a minute later its lamps flared as it rolled over the sward toward the wood.

Sir Caryll ran forward, but the novelist was before him, desirous of being first to secure a place. The young baronet's object, however, was different.

"What do they say of Mrs. Darling?" he called as the car slowed down.

"Who, sir?" asked the chauffeur.

"The lady who was so severely burned. Have the doctors seen her, do you know?"

"Oh, her, sir!" The man was in ill-humor at having been called from his bed at such an hour. "I believe they have, sir. I 'eard some one say as it was all up with some one. I suppose it was 'er they meant, sir. Now don't crowd, please, there's more cars be'ind this one!"

Carleigh stood as one stunned.

It was the voice of the marchioness that recalled him.

"Did you find me a smoke?" she was asking.

"Cigarettes," said Carleigh, "are as scarce as – as watches, unfortunately." And his tone was more lifeless than ever.

CHAPTER XVIII
At Cross Saddle

Carleigh found himself presently crowded into the last seat of the last car, beside the Honorable Julian.

The occupants were men exclusively, and the subject of debate was the fire's origin. This was mingled with snatches of personal experiences.

"I fancy it started in the laundry drying-room," their host observed. "Overheated pipes or something."

"How about crossed wires?" some one asked. "The electricity in the east wing was out of commission from the start."

"But the flames showed first in the north extension," another man contributed. "I was lying wide-awake and saw the glare from my window."

"Yes. And if it hadn't been for your wakefulness, old chap, we might every one of us have been incinerated in our beds," Archdeacon observed gratefully. "As it was, the east wing was totally cut off before we could get to it."

He turned to Carleigh. "That's where you were, you know. We did our best to reach your room, but you were hemmed in. We tried shying stones at your windows, but it was too pitchy dark to locate them. Fancy what I went through before you dropped onto the dahlia bed!"

Sir Caryll appeared far less grateful for his deliverance than was to have been expected. He wasn't sure, indeed, that he was grateful at all. What with one romance ended and another budding one interrupted by death or disfigurement – life for him certainly was not worth the living.

"I suppose I did have a narrow squeak for it," he said.

Dawn had come, but it was a dark, indistinguishable dawn because of the heavy black clouds that shrouded it. The hall at Cross Saddle was brilliantly alight therefore when they arrived, and on the wide hearth blazed a roaring fire of great logs.

Many of the earlier arrivals had already been provided for, but there was still a waiting group, so smoke-stained and in such motley makeshift attire as to have titillated the risibilities of any but the most stolid British.

Sir Caryll's visage, black as a Senegambian's, was as long as the proverbial arm of coincidence. Directly he began making inquiry for the doctors in attendance on Nina, and learned with a mingling of encouragement and dismay that they had already done what they could and departed.

He ascertained also that Cecile Archdeacon was installed as nurse, assisted by Nina's own maid. But beyond these two facts he could gather nothing definite. Opinion at Cross Saddle appeared to be quite as divided as opinion at Carfen.

Sir Guy Waldron, who would be most likely to know the exact facts – if there were any exact facts to know – was already quartered, and anxious as Carleigh was he would not think of disturbing the man he had come to regard as a dangerous – and therefore hated – rival.

Lord Dalgries and his two sons were up and about, making arrangements for the refugees. Some of the guests at the hall had been awakened, too, and some not. Most of the men turned out and most of the women stayed in.

Young Nevill Dalgries, a chap about Carleigh's own age, who had been to school with him, had seen Mrs. Darling when she was carried in, and he didn't mind telling Caryll that at that moment he wouldn't have wagered tuppence on her life. But he had later been present when Dr. Dodson talked with his father about her, and —

"The M. D. seemed to think she'd pull through. He'll be over again in the forenoon. He said she was as comfortable as could be expected under the circumstances."

"They always say that," returned Carleigh, attempting to wipe out betraying signs of his emotion and leaving a gray-white streak across the black of either cheek. "They fill 'em with opium or something."

Nevertheless, he felt in a measure relieved. If it was as speculative as all the rest, it was, nevertheless, the speculation of authority and not the mere guesswork of indifferent optimistic or pessimistic lay minds.

Still he hung about, talking to whomsoever would talk of the one topic that engaged him until about all the rest had been led off to sleeping places.

Then finally, with Nevill Dalgries for guide, he followed to where a bed had been set up for him in one of the nurseries.

And there he lay awake, his brain teeming, until one of the footmen came to him at a little after eight. Then he raised himself on one elbow and asked whether the footman had heard how Mrs. Darling was.

"Mrs. Darling is very bad, sir," was the answer.

"But she was distinctly better when I turned in," Carleigh offered protest.

"Yes, sir; I dare say, sir. But she's very bad this morning, sir. Her maid was in the servants' hall not ten minutes ago, sir."

"And she said she was worse?"

"Oh, yes, sir. Very much worse, sir."

Sir Caryll let a long sigh escape him. He couldn't help it. The footman heard it and drew a conclusion or two.

"They're likely to be worse in the morning, you know, sir. I had an aunt once – begging your pardon, sir – that was burned most 'orribly. She was always worse in the morning, sir."

"And she recovered – in the end?" asked the baronet anxiously.

"No, sir. Not at all, sir. She died at last, sir. In the morning, just about this time, sir."

Carleigh dropped back on his pillow, and the footman, taking the action as a signal for silence, proceeded to light a fire, to fill the bath, and to lay out a very nice array of lent linen and morning garments for the guest to select from.

When he went away Carleigh got up with a curious new kind of pain about his heart and head which he was puzzled to account for.

Perhaps it was the smoke he had inhaled, or perhaps it was Mrs. Darling's condition. He wasn't sure which. At any rate, it was very real and very distressing.

He had bathed and scrubbed very carefully, as he thought, before lying down. But the morning light revealed stains and blotches invisible by candlelight – there was no electricity at Cross Saddle – and it took him some time to remove them.

As a consequence he found, when he went down to breakfast, that nearly every one was there before him. There was a general hubbub in the room that was nigh to deafening.

Questions were flying about like buzzing insects; and then, too, there was the more or less inevitable clatter of too hurried service.

He found a place at the table, and was just dropping a lump of sugar into his tea when a most extraordinary and upsetting thing happened.

The door opened again and admitted – of all persons in the world – Miss Rosamond Veynol.