'Oh, yes, I think so. The sound seems to me beyond all mistake. I have
heard it before.'

'Not an accident?'

'No--no accident. I don't think we need trouble about _that_. Look here,
Sir Rupert; you look after the house and the Duchess, and Sarrasin and
everybody; Hamilton will help you--I say, Hamilton! Hamilton! where are
you? I am going to have a ride round the grounds and see if anyone is
lurking. I have ordered a horse to be bridled.'

'You take command, Ericson,' Sir Rupert said.

'Outside, yes,' Ericson assented. 'You look after things inside.'

'You must order a horse for me too,' Helena exclaimed, stiffening
herself up from her father's protecting embrace. 'I can help you, I have
the eyes of a lynx--I must do something. I must! Let me go, papa!' She
turned appealingly to Sir Rupert.

'Go, child, if you won't be in the way.'

Ericson hesitated, just for a second; then he spoke.

'Come with me if you will, Miss Langley. You can pilot me over the
grounds as nobody else can.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, and they both rushed downstairs together. The
servants were already lighting up such of the electric lamps as had been
left uninjured after the explosion. The electric engineer was on the
spot and at work, with his assistants, as fresh and active as if none of
them had ever wanted a rest in his life. Ericson cast a glance over the
whole scene, and had to acknowledge that the household had turned out
with almost the promptitude of a fire-drill on the ocean. The
women-servants, who were to be seen in their night-dresses scuttling
wildly about when the crash of the explosion first shook them up had now
altogether disappeared, and were in all probability steadily engaged in
putting things to rights wherever they could, and no one yet knew the
number of the dead.

Ericson and Helena got down to the hall. The girl was happy. Her father
was safe; and she was with the man she loved. More than that, she had a
sense of sharing a danger with the man she loved. That was a delight to
be expressed by no words. She had not the remotest idea of what had
happened. She had been sitting up late--unable to sleep. She had been
thinking about the news the Dictator had told her--that he was going to
leave her. Then came the tremendous crash of the explosion, and for a
moment her senses and her thought were gone. Then she staggered to her
feet, half blinded, half deafened, but alive, and she rushed to her door
and dragged it open; an