een cast amazed eyes upon each other,
women clutched the persons nearest them, and Jane Erskine, seeking half
wildly for some one in the crowd, found Peter and said to him, 'What is
it? Who went in there just now? Oh, Peter, for a moment I thought it
was you!'

There was a shout of warning, but it was too late for the man, whoever
he was, to turn back. He was inside the tower now, and no shouting
could hold him. Some prayed as they stood there, murmuring half
mechanically, 'Save him! save him!' as instinctively men and women will
pray even when the life for which they plead may carry with it such
sorrow as they never dreamed of.

Suddenly some young men who had climbed to the top of the knoll gave a
shout, and the fire-engine from Sedgwick turned the corner of the road
with a fine dash, for Tom Ellis, a good whip, was driving, and the
white horse on the near side knew as well as any Christian how to save
an inch of the road. The fire-engine, all gleaming with brass fittings
and flaming red paint, clattered to the door, and pulled up with
admirable precision on the spot from which a hose could be played.
Eight men in helmets leaped from their seats and got their gear in
order with the coolness of blue-jackets in a storm. But for its
quietness and its controlled, workmanlike effect, the whole scene had
distinctly a dramatic touch about it. Possibly the firemen would have
shouted louder had they been upon the boards, and fainting women, it is
generally assumed, give a realistic touch to well-staged melodrama. No
doubt the crowd on the terrace at Bowshott would have disappointed an
Adelphi audience. But the old white horse stood to attention like a
soldier on a field day; and Tom Ellis, wiping his brow as though he
himself had run in the shafts all the way from Sedgwick, lent a touch
of stage realism to the scene. Nothing could save the interior of the
tower--that was past praying for; but a shout went up that there was a
man inside, and the firemen threw their ladders against the walls and
prepared their scaling-irons and life-saving apparatus. The smoke
rolled out in dense volumes now, and through the gloom a voice shouted,
'It 's all right! He 's crossed the bridge again!'

'Oh, are you sure? are you sure?' said Jane, her fear almost amounting
to a panic, and it haunted her for long afterwards that perhaps the man
had not actually escaped the fire. For nothing was heard of him again,
and it was only after