Mrs. Armstrong and Louise are in the village?" she called.

"No," I replied, startled. "How did you hear it?"

"I met the oldest Stewart girl to-day, the doctor's daughter, and she
told me they had not gone back to town after the funeral. They went
directly to that little yellow house next to Doctor Walker's, and are
apparently settled there. They took the house furnished for the
summer."

"Why, it's a bandbox," I said. "I can't imagine Fanny Armstrong in
such a place."

"It's true, nevertheless. Ella Stewart says Mrs. Armstrong has aged
terribly, and looks as if she is hardly able to walk."

I lay and thought over some of these things until midnight. The
electric lights went out then, fading slowly until there was only a
red-hot loop to be seen in the bulb, and then even that died away and
we were embarked on the darkness of another night.

Apparently only a few minutes elapsed, during which my eyes were
becoming accustomed to the darkness. Then I noticed that the windows
were reflecting a faint pinkish light, Liddy noticed it at the same
time, and I heard her jump up. At that moment Sam's deep voice boomed
from somewhere just below.

"Fire!" he yelled. "The stable's on fire!"

I could see him in the glare dancing up and down on the drive, and a
moment later Halsey joined him. Alex was awake and running down the
stairs, and in five minutes from the time the fire was discovered,
three of the maids were sitting on their trunks in the drive, although,
excepting a few sparks, there was no fire nearer than a hundred yards.

Gertrude seldom loses her presence of mind, and she ran to the
telephone. But by the time the Casanova volunteer fire department came
toiling up the hill the stable was a furnace, with the Dragon Fly safe
but blistered, in the road. Some gasolene exploded just as the
volunteer department got to work, which shook their nerves as well as
the burning building. The stable, being on a hill, was a torch to
attract the population from every direction. Rumor had it that
Sunnyside was burning, and it was amazing how many people threw
something over their night-clothes and flew to the conflagration.

I take it Casanova has few fires, and Sunnyside was furnishing the
people, in one way and another, the greatest excitement they had had
for years.

The stable was off the west wing. I hardly know how I came to think of
the circular staircase and the unguarded door at its foot. Liddy was
p