The London footman was rolling out the dressing-gong as if he had been apprenticed to a bronze, when Ned Blackborough returned from his sick friend at the Seaview Hotel; but he took no heed to its warning, and turning down a side passage sought a room in the older part of the house where, as a rule, his uncle was to be found.

And sure enough, there he was, seated at his so-called writing-table, and turning round a trifle startled, pen in hand, at the sound of the opening door. But Ned's quick eye detected neither paper nor ink. The pen, then, was a mere shelter against the unlooked-for visitor.

It was a quaint room, full from floor to ceiling of the man and his immediate forbears, that succession of Sir Richards and Sir Geoffreys who had inherited the ever-lessening estate of Pentreath for the last two hundred years. Fishing-rods, guns, hunting-horns, and dueling-pistols testified to their amusements, a tin box labelled "Pentreath Estate Records," to their occupation, and a complete set of the Annual Register and Gentleman's Magazine to their literary tastes. There was a weighing-machine also, and in a glass case the sword presented to the then Sir Richard by Prince Charlie; for the Pentreaths were always on the losing side in everything. Yet they had always held their heads high in the past.

But now Sir Geoffrey's haggard face looked as if it had been seeking refuge in the hands, one of which he held out in kindly greeting.

"So it's you, Ned!--like old times. I'm glad to see you back again, my boy."

"And I'm glad to be back, sir," he replied, paused, and then feeling there was no good in beating about the bush, made a plunge.

"I've got something to say to you, sir. We are leaving to-morrow morning, and I may not have another opportunity----" he paused again.

"Not much time before dinner," said Sir Geoffrey, consulting his watch. "But fire away. Going to get married?--eh?"

"Perhaps," said Ned coolly, "but this is about the hotel."

"Damn the hotel! What's up now?" Never was curse more heartily or more hopelessly given. "Well--go on."

"I don't know who is responsible for installing the electric light, but it isn't safe. The wires are always fusing. They keep it very dark, but my friend--who is a bit of an electrical engineer himself--found out when he was awake last night----"

Sir Geoffrey's face was hidden by his hand again as he interrupted Ned with a short laugh.

"Oh! that's it--why, they always 'krab' each other's work--always! And--and your money's safe enough now; the place is insured."

"I wasn't thinking of the money, sir," cried Ned outraged. "I was thinking of all those women and children."

Sir Geoffrey's face came up from his hand full of such passionate resentment that Ned was fairly startled. "By Gad, sir!" he cried, "and what right have you to suppose I don't think of them? night and day, sir--day and night!" Then his eyes finding Ned's, he stretched out his hand towards him in almost childish helplessness. "Oh, Ned! Ned!" he said, "you can't think what a relief it is to talk of this with--with one of ourselves--with--with a gentleman instead of a cursed money grubber--though I will say this for Hirsch, he isn't a cad."

"Then you've known of this before, sir," said Ned slowly. "I see----"

"Known! My God! Ned, what haven't I known since the devil entered into me to start this thing! I wouldn't tell you, Ned, for I knew you'd be like Helen; but I told the heir, and he liked it. All he wants is money. And I--all I wanted was to make something--just something for Helen after poor old Jeff--went. He'd have looked after her, you see--the Pentreaths have always kept our women well--always cared for them. But he died! Ay!"--here his trembling lip stiffened itself, "died as a Pentreath should for his Queen and his country."

In the pause that ensued Ned thought bitterly that he had died in an attempt to hold the yeomanry of England from showing the road to the rear. That was the truth, and behind that truth what a record of ignorance, ineptitude, greed of gain. Nothing for nothing, not even patriotism, was the modern motto; a cheap loaf and a disintegrated empire--caveat emptor even in the face of war.

"You can't believe it all, Ned," went on Sir Geoffrey, speaking now with less passion but more eagerness, as if his memories brimmed over, "until you've been through with it. I meant it all to be above board, but it wasn't. The jobbery was awful. Every man just clamouring for money. A gentleman oughtn't to touch a thing like that--it's pitch, Ned. He has to keep in with builders and masons and plumbers--Oh, my God!--the plumbers!--all thinking of nothing but 'pay, pay, pay.' Ah! Kipling knew the game when he wrote that refrain for England's heroism, her patriotism. It will go down to the ages, Ned, as one man's insight into what we English are becoming." He was walking up and down the room now, restlessly. "They were all bad, but Jenkin was the worst--and he ought to have known. It was his nephew who put in the electric plant. You'll say I ought to have struck, Ned, and so I ought, but your money was gone, Ned, and their's too, poor devils!--a lot of the farmers and people only put in a few pounds because it was my idea, you see. It had to go on. And what did I know about sea-sand and second-class putty. It isn't gentleman's work and that's a fact. But the jolly old Atlantic knew sharp enough and sent salt through the plaster and sea-spray through the concrete.... Then, when we were in a bad way, and Jenkin--pettifogging tradesman!--all for saving every penny, I met Hirsch. Between ourselves, Ned, he began by fancying Helen, and I--I--well! He isn't a cad, you know, and half those men one meets are; yet their wives don't--don't seem to mind."

He paused and looked at Ned Blackborough appealingly, but he was inexorable.

"Hardly the man I should have thought you'd have chosen, sir, as the father of your grandchildren."

Sir Geoffrey took it full in the face without flinching. "No," he said simply, "I suppose not. But I've gone down, Ned, gone down terribly. I sometimes wonder if she--if your aunt, I mean, would know me again if--if I saw her."

He took a turn or two without speaking, then gave an afterthought excuse which made Ned smile, and yet feel inclined to curse.

"But there mightn't be any children, you know. What good would they be--the old place has gone from the Pentreaths--gone utterly. Let me see--where was I? Oh yes! Hirsch came and saw it, and said it was the finest site in Britain. And so it is. There's not a better for health or beauty than Cam's point. So he put us on our feet again, and spent an awful lot on what he called 'colour wash.' At least it seems an awful lot to me, and Jenkin was wild. But we had to run it, or the new company wouldn't have caught on--we have to make it fizz, you see--but I wish to God I'd never begun,--I wish to God I'd never begun----"

He was still walking up and down muttering to himself.

"And meanwhile," asked Ned, in spite of his supreme pity, "what is to be done? The wires may fuse any moment--so Charteris thinks----"

Sir Geoffrey caught at the doubt--"It's not so bad as that--I don't think it's so bad. When the season's over and the new company secure, we shall put a new plant in and insure the place properly. And meanwhile we are awfully careful. I was two hours there to-day myself, seeing what the workmen had done; and it was quite a little thing--put out in a moment."

"But you don't know anything about electricity, do you, sir?" asked Ned quietly, "and I thought you said it was insured."

Sir Geoffrey's face reddened. "Yes, in a way. Hirsch insured when he came in. He wouldn't put his money in without it."

"Would he put his wife and children in, I wonder?" asked Ned bitterly. "But I still don't quite understand about the insurance----"

Sir Geoffrey fidgeted. "I'll get Hirsch to explain. It's all right, I believe, though. But they'll insure anything nowadays, if you pay a decent premium--any mortal thing." He paused and stood the image of hopeless perplexity; and then--rather to his relief--the dinner gong sounded. "Good Lord! And I'm not dressed," he muttered, "we'd better go."

But as he reached the stairs where they divided, he held out that friendly, welcoming, family hand again, saying:--"Thanks, Ned, it's been such an awful relief not to be thinking of money. I suppose when one comes into so much as you have, that--that you don't think of it any more?"

Was it so, Ned Blackborough wondered. Hardly; for Mr. Hirsch had millions and still thought of more. No! he personally had been tired of money for some time. Caveat emptor was an excellent legal if not absolutely moral axiom; but when men allowed your millions to confuse the issue in their treatment of you, then--then one could wish the millions were not in the equation!

And of late--ever, in fact, since he had left the floating deposit and had seen Aura--he smiled at the remembrance of her standing framed in scarlet and white, handing back the sovereign with that peremptory "Take it please!"

Why should not he and she go forth in the wilderness in their sandalled feet to forget--and to remember? That was life. To forget so much, and to remember so much that one had forgotten.

He pulled himself up after a time from the unaccustomed line of thought or reverie, telling himself it was all nonsense--sheer nonsense. Yet it was attractive.

Suddenly the words "Go! sell all that thou hast," recurred to him, making him wonder if it were a hard saying or no. For the moment he felt inclined to obey it literally.

They were halfway through dinner ere Lord Blackborough appeared at the table. To begin with he had wired to his valet for dress clothes, and, accustomed to the routine of good service, had expected to find them in his room. They were not, however, and only by the help of a tearful little Cornish maiden at whom all the racketty job servants from London were swearing profusely as she fled about trying to do everything at once, did he discover his suit-case in the servants' hall, where two lordly chauffeurs accosted him scornfully as some one's belated valet. He escaped from them--and from the cook who, solemnly drunk, was using inconceivable language to the entrÉe she was dishing up--only to find that his man had forgotten to put the studs in his shirt. Whereupon he also cursed as he broke his finger-nails over the job. And yet all the time at the back of his brain, the thought of Aura lingered, and in the front of it his uncle's face, so foolishly, childishly, helplessly wanting money.

What else had the old man expected but chicanery when he dabbled in the Pool. It was nothing but a clutching whirlpool of hands trying to grasp at a golden sovereign in the centre! Every one clutched, he as much as any one. Then with a jar, his mind reverted to the shade of many a tree he had seen in India, where men lived, and apparently lived happily, possessed of nothing but their souls, devoid of all things save the inevitable garment of flesh.

The shade of a Bo-tree!

This certainly was not it, he thought, as with a smiling apology he slipped into the empty place and found himself in the battle-ground of a heated discussion.

A trifle dazzling surely, these lights and flowers and fair women. Helen looked well in white at the head of the table between Mr. Hirsch and Dr. Ramsay; and, thank Heaven! she had left off weepers in the evening. What a difference there was between lace and stiff crimped muslin; and how young she looked.

The rapidity of thought is immeasurable, the velocity of its vibration untranslatable in terms of mere human flesh and blood. These thoughts and millions of others suggested by the whole entourage which in a second became part of Ned Blackborough's life-experience, passed into his mind and left him free at once to listen to his cousin's gay--

"Here's Ned! I'll appeal to him! Do you think it fair that we women shouldn't have votes?"

"We shall have to settle our terminology first, Helen," he replied in the same tone. "What is fair? I presume what Mrs. Tressilian considers to be right."

"That isn't fair if you like," she retorted. "Fair is"--she paused.

"Exactly so!" laughed Peter Ramsay. "Is there an outside standard or is there not? That is the question."

Mr. Hirsch, who always wore white waistcoats in the evening (they were not so becoming as black ones) answered it.

"Of course there is a standard--the general consensus of opinion."

"Made up of units?" suggested Dr. Ramsay.

"Quite so!" retorted the financier, "but it gives the limit of safety. Between certain lines you can negotiate--even on the Stock Exchange, ha, ha!" His laugh was curiously explosive and shook him from head to foot.

"But surely there is a standard," said Helen softly.

"There is a standard which, collectively, we accept, Helen. It comes back in the end to our personal verdict, I'm afraid," said her cousin, "and it is curious how that verdict varies," he continued addressing Mr. Hirsch. "You, I expect, believe in the law of supply and demand. Now, I feel, somehow, that if I were to charge a thousand pounds for a glass of water which a distracted husband wanted for his dying wife, I should be doing a detestably mean thing, even though the man was quite willing and able to pay for it." There was a pause.

"That is rather a stiff example," said Ted Cruttenden; "but theoretically, a man surely has the right to get the best price he can for his wares; without that axiom commerce would come to an end."

"What would the world be without it, I wonder?" remarked Dr. Ramsay. "Supposing it was made penal for any one to take more than ten per cent. profit----"

"I should be a pauper," laughed Mr. Hirsch, his bright eyes dancing. "That would not suit me at all. Why, I should have nothing over to give away, and my charities cover my sins. Imagine it, a world where there was no 'coup,' where your brains were of no use to you. Pah!" He poured himself out a glass of water abstractedly, and drank it as if to take away the taste.

He was in great form that night, the rebuff of Helen's refusal to drive home with him having acted on his abundant vitality much as the attempt of a rival on the Stock Exchange to limit his freedom of action would have done, that is, it stimulated his determination to do as he chose.

And the others seemed in high spirits also, so that even Ned forgot the very existence of the Seaview Hotel, until some one said laughingly that there must be electricity in the air, or magnetism, or hypnotism, and suggested a sÉance of some kind.

"No," cried Lady Wrexham, who posed as being well in with the Psychical Research Society. "Let us crystal gaze--or stay, a magic mirror. Only a little ink in the palm of the hand, Mrs. Tresillian. It so often comes off when I'm in the room, and I'm sure you could 'scry,' I see it in your eyes."

Helen's caught Dr. Ramsay's instantly, almost resentfully, but he was silent.

"Perhaps I'm a witch also, who knows?" she said, speaking at him. "Old Betty Cam was an ancestress of ours, wasn't she, father? and she was the devil's own warlock. But you shan't be disappointed, Lady Wrexham. There is a real magical crystal that came from Thibet somewhere in the house. I will find it for you to-morrow, or rather to-day, for it is past twelve o'clock. Time for every one who isn't a witch to be in her bed, surely."

There was a decision about the remark which would not be gainsaid, so the ladies, some with, some without lights, dawdled upstairs like wise and foolish virgins, calling down jokes and good-nights to the men on their way to the billiard-room, while Ned Blackborough, seizing his opportunity, waylaid Mr. Hirsch and begged for five minutes in Sir Geoffrey's den.

"About the hotel," echoed Mr. Hirsch when Ned broached the subject. "Pardon! But excuse me if I change my cigarette for a cigar. There is always so much to be said concerning that business."

He spoke with a smile, but his face had hardened at once, and Ned, listening, could not but admire his companion's uncompromising directness. He was aware of course, he said, that the money Sir Geoffrey had invested was a loan from Lord Blackborough, and therefore he treated him, as a shareholder, a large shareholder, with absolute freedom.

Well! Mr. Hirsch had found Sir Geoffrey in difficulties, and had helped him. Why? Because, having a great penchant for Mrs. Tressilian, he was glad to be of use. The hotel would practically have to be rebuilt. At present its condition would disgrace a jerry-built villa near London. And they had perpetrated this inconceivable sham in full face of the Atlantic.

But it was always the way when such schemes were not properly floated at first. There never was enough money to allow for the inevitable leakage. Then little men had little ways, and the methods of a tuppenny--ha' penny ring, like this had been, were simply horrible.

But the site was gigantic, absolutely gigantic, and if you could only get rid of that bloated mechanic Jenkin and his gang, you could make anything of it. But they were incurably vulgar--they had wanted a gramaphone in the hall, they allowed one in the steward's room.

The words reminded Ned that, as he walked up to the hotel, lost in admiration of that marvellous sea surging against the sheer cliff, he had been greeted by shrieks of laughter and the sound of a double shuffle done to the latest music hall "catch on." And he smiled. Hirsch was right. It was incurably vulgar. Who was it who said that, since nowadays he had to choose between solitude and vulgarity, he chose the former?

Mr. Hirsch's cigar had actually gone out in his irritation, but he was alight again and went on.

Regarding the insurance? Yes. He had made a temporary arrangement to secure his own money and Sir Geoffrey's, and a little over; you could secure anything nowadays by a high enough premium. In fact, the best thing that could happen now, if he might be excused for saying so, was--was a fresh start--without Jenkin! The hotel would practically have to be rebuilt anyhow at the end of the season. Meanwhile, regarding the electric light. It was bad--that was Jenkin again--but they were exercising extreme care, and could do no more.

"But supposing," began Ned.

"My dear Lord Blackborough," said Mr. Hirsch, with a curious smile as he arose and pulled down his white waistcoat, "I never deal in suppositions. As a business man, I can't afford it. I know this has been worrying Sir Geoffrey, who has old-fashioned ideas of responsibility, but--ah! here he comes. I was just saying, sir, how disturbed you were this morning about the slight alarm at the Seaview last night. But, as I told you, it really lessens the odds of its occurring again. To make any fuss just at present, when you need to get all the money you can in order to start the thing fair, would be suicidal. I don't, in fact, see that we are bound to do any more than we are doing. There is a certain risk in all large buildings as badly supplied with water as this one is. But surely one must credit people with eyes. Caveat Emptor! Lord Blackborough, Caveat Emptor! That immoral but comfortable piece of wisdom is the backbone of all reasonable speculation. Good-night. If I may, I'll have some whisky and water in the billiard room on my way upstairs."

Ned came back from the door and looked at his uncle.

"Well, sir," he said, "what is to be done?"

Sir Geoffrey's face was a study of irresolution. "Let's leave it till to-morrow, Ned," he said at last; "the night will bring wisdom. But I expect Hirsch is right. He has a wonderfully clear head; and I only wish that Helen----"

"I would leave Helen out of the business if I were you, sir," interrupted Ned angrily.

It was intolerable to think of her as possible part payment. As he lit his candle and made his way to the old wing, "among the ruins," as she called it, he told himself that he had half a mind to buy out all other interests and spend an extra thousand or two in throwing the whole gim-crack building over the cliffs. And it was all so useless! Helen didn't want the money; she was craving to live on an hospital nurse's pay.

"Ned," said a voice at the door, just as he had taken off his coat, "let me in, please, I must see you."

It was Helen herself. Her eyes were blazing bright, her face was pale. She had flung a white shawl over her bare shoulders, yet she shivered.

"Ned," she said swiftly, "thank God you're here! You must come with me--you will, won't you? Put on your thick shoes and come as you are. It is quite warm--there is only a fog."

"Come," he echoed, "come where?"

She seemed a trifle confused, and passed her hand over her forehead.

"Down to the point, of course; they must be warned----"

"Warned of what? What have you heard?"

"I didn't hear, I saw. Ah! do come quick, I ought to be there, you know, showing a light."

She spoke in curiously even tones, and for an instant Ned thought she was sleep-walking or dreaming. One of those deadly dreams of excessive hurry in which, no matter what you do, thought leaves the labouring body far behind.

"You saw it! But where, and what?"

She was silent for a second, looking at him half-dazed, then she spoke quite naturally. "It was in the crystal--the one they brought from Thibet. He said I could, and so I saw----"

Suddenly her whole bearing changed.

"Fire! fire! fire!" The cry, loud and clear, came as she turned and fled, he after her down the dark passage, led by the glimmer of her white gown.

Had she gone mad, or had she really seen something?

There was a little outside door, once the postern gate of the old Keep, which opened at the angle of the wing and the main part of the house. He followed her through that, losing her almost immediately in the dense white fog which clung to the damp walls. The windows of Sir Geoffrey's study were open, and as he ran past them, following the path, he heard something which sent the blood in a wild leap through his veins. It was a furious insistent ringing of the telephone call bell, which Sir Geoffrey, in his first delight with his new toy on the point, had put in so that he might be constantly in touch with the workmen.

Then something was wrong. What? As he spurted ahead towards Helen's ghost-like figure seen in the clearer atmosphere beyond, he asked himself how she could have known.

"Where are you going?" he called breathlessly, "that isn't the way to the hotel."

She turned for a moment, then ran on, her voice coming back to him, "It is the light--the light on Betty Cam's chair--the light for the ship."

"Helen! Helen! go back, what good can you do? Let me go and see," he called, striving desperately to overtake her; but she was as swift as a hare, and so dimly seen, too, dodging about among those huge boulders. And everywhere the sea-fog hung thick. "Helen! Helen!" His cry came back to him, but no other sound did he hear save the rising roar of the waves as he neared the cliff.

Right ahead of him rose Betty Cam's chair. Well! if she was going there he would catch her up then; and he would see--yes! he would see from there if anything was wrong.

For a moment he saw her above him,--on the sky-line was it? And, if so, why was the sky so clear? Was there a glow? Great God! there was! a glow in the sky and at her feet.

"Helen! Helen!" he cried as he sped on. "Tell me, what is it?"

There was no answer, but the next instant he had gained the crest, and could see. It was fire, but fire seen through fog. The strangest sight--a huge vignette, a magic-lantern slide, sharp in the centre, fading to an aureole. Close as they were, he could see nothing save dim shadows in the blaze of light.

"The ship! the ship! It is coming so fast--oh! so fast," said a monotonous voice beside him. Helen--Good God! how ill she looked, all unlike herself--was seated on Betty Cam's chair, pointing with her right hand far out to sea.

"Nell!" he said swiftly, "Come! I can't leave you here, and I must get down at once, the road's just below us, they will need all the help----"

As he spoke he knew some was coming, for a live spark showed swift curving through the white fog where the road should be, racing like a great fuse to the heart of a mine. It must be a motor--Hirsch's most likely--Thank Heaven he was at least a man of action! Yes, that was his voice coining back as the light flashed, raced, disappeared.

"For God's sake, be calm, sir, we've done all we could, we'll do all we can!"

Not true! not true! except the last. "Helen!" he cried roughly, "your father--come!"

Did she smile? He did not wait to make certain, but leaving her, dashed down the hill. Halfway he turned doubtfully, hoping she had followed him; but, already almost lost in the mist, he saw the lonely figure with the faint glow about it still seated on Betty Cam's chair.

As he dashed on again a curious shuddering boom rolled through the fog. He wondered vaguely what it was, but his whole mind was set on that nebulous circle of flaming light. He was nearer now, the vignetting grew sharper, towers and balconies began to loom luridly, beset by tongues of flame. It must be all on fire--a wide sweep from end to end.

Again that shuddering boom--what was it? My God! Could Helen be right again, and was it a ship in distress? As he ran, he counted ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, fifty-five, sixty. A ship! a ship, indeed! Was there to be no ending or horrors? He was on the upward rise now. The aureole had gone. He could see the flames leaping while the crowd stood still.

A large crowd, thank God! so they must be all out surely!

He met a man running back, calling as he ran, "A ship in distress on the rocks--the life-boat--more help needed there, come!"

"Are they all out?" he shouted, and the man nodded as he ran.

A relief, indeed!

He slackened speed, as more fisher-folk ran past him back to their work, their trade.

All out! my God! what a relief! No! by Heaven! There was a sudden stir in the crowd, and high upon the furthermost seaword balcony, as yet untouched by the flames, a little white figure showed bending over the balustrade, and calling to some one below.

The answer reached him, making him leap forward--

"All right, little lady! I'm coming!"

There was a struggle ahead of him, a tall figure breaking loose from hands that would have held it back; and then his uncle----

"For God's sake," he shouted as he ran--"think of Helen!"

The voice arrested Sir Geoffrey for a second, and Ned never forgot the look of that scared, kindly, distraught face he saw for a moment.

"I am thinking of her," came the answer. Then the pause ended.

Ned was after him without a moment's consideration; life seemed so small a thing to him that he could not stop to think of it; but Ted Cruttenden sprang forward, also, to hold him back. The Fates did that, however, for as he would have plunged into the burning house, the upper hinge of one of the wide hall doors gave way, and as it swung inwards with a crash, just touched Ned's forearm, and snapped it like a bulrush.

As he staggered, Ted had hold of him. "You can't," he said. "He knows every turn, and may do it yet if the stairs stand. It's madness for you. And my God! there's Mrs. Tresillian. Why did they let her come? we didn't tell her on purpose----"

Ned, dazed with a pain he had hardly located, had only time to wonder stupidly how she had managed to change her dress--she wore a coat and skirt--before she was beside him clinging to his unhurt arm.

"Father!" she said. "Ned, where is father?"

He shook his head. "Doing his duty, I suppose," he muttered; "I tried to follow, but got hurt. Try to keep calm if you can, Nell, there's a chance still."

Yes! a chance, if the fire-proof stairs were fire-proof. She stood quiet, silent; only once he heard her say to herself, "Why did I wait--oh! why didn't I come at once?"

So the minutes passed, and the crowds of Camhaven fisherfolk giving up hope of more excitement here tonight, sought it elsewhere, though already a murmur had come out of the fog that there was no immediate danger; a big ship was on the sunken rocks, and had established communication with the shore. That was all.

And still the minutes passed, and Ned stood holding Helen's hand in his.

Yet there was no sign of returning feet upon the fireproof stair.

A little breeze springing up had drifted the smoke south-west, obscuring the balcony so they could see nothing.

Those who knew her began to look at her with pitying eyes. Then in an instant something in which all else was forgotten--a sharp sound like the crack of a rifle, a quick upburst of sparks, then a great crash, and for a few moments silence and darkness.

The roof had fallen in.

"I'll take her home, Lord Blackborough," said Peter Ramsay, for all her height lifting her easily. "You will be wanted here. Mr. Hirsch, I may use your motor?"

"Broken," replied Mr. Hirsch, who was as white as a sheet, the tears almost running down his cheeks. "I drove it myself, and I didn't understand, but the Wrexham's is here. My God! what a frightful thing--shrecklich! schrecklich!" His voice shook; these things were not in the bond.

Yet one bond had been kept, for in an hour's time, when the flames had eaten their full of the frail thing which had dared to usurp Cam's point, they found Sir Geoffrey half-way down the stair caught in a trap between two gaps in what had been scheduled as a fire-proof staircase.

He held the child in his arms, her head, wrapped in his coat to preserve her from the smoke, nestled close upon his breast.

"For ever never an-naye!" That promise anyhow had been kept as a Pentreath should have kept it!