How they gained the boudoir, Aline hardly knew, but she found herself there with the smoke all round, pressing on her like a solid thing, blinding, stinging, choking. Ahead of her Mlle Ange groped along the wall. Once she staggered, but with a great effort kept on, and at last stopped and pressed with all her strength. In the darkness appeared a darker patch, and then, just as Aline’s throbbing senses seemed about to fail her, she felt her hand caught, she was pulled through a narrow opening, her feet felt steps, mounted instinctively, and her lungs drew in a long, long breath of relief, for here the smoke had hardly penetrated, and the air, though heavy, was quite fit to breathe. For a moment they halted and then climbed on. The stair went steeply up, wound to the left, and ceased. Then again Ange stood feeling for the catch with fingers that had known it well enough in the dead days. Now they hesitated, tried here and there, failed of the secret, and went groping to and fro, until Aline’s blood beat in her throat, and she could have cried out with fear and impatience. The moment seemed interminable, and the smoke mounted behind them in ever-thickening whirls. "It was here, mon Dieu, what has become of it? So many years ago, but I thought I could have found it blindfold. Réné showing me,—his hand on mine—ah, at last," and with that the murmuring voice ceased, and the panelling slipped smoothly back, letting in more smoke, to press like a nightmare upon their already labouring lungs. Through it the window showed a red square, against which was outlined a white, huddled shape. It was Marguerite, who lay just as she had fallen, head bowed, one hand thrust out, the other at her throat. Ange and Aline stood by her for a moment leaning from the window, and taking in what air they might, and then the confusion and the stumbling began once more, only this time they had a weight to carry, and could shield neither eyes nor lungs from the pervading smoke. Twice they stopped, and twice that dreadful roar of the fire, a roar that drowned even the heavy beat of their burdened pulses, drove them on again, until at last they stumbled out upon the terrace, and there halted, gasping terribly. The intolerable heat dripped from them in a black sweat, and for a while they crouched trembling in every limb. Then Ange whispered with dry lips: "We must go on. This is not safe." They staggered forward once more, and even as they did so there was a most appalling crash, and the flames rushed up like a pyramid to heaven, making all the countryside light with a red travesty of day. Urged by terror, and with a final effort, they dragged Marguerite down the steps, and on, until they sank at last exhausted under a cypress which watched the pool where the fountain played no more.