“What is in it?” There was no mistaking the seriousness in Angel’s voice. “Broken furniture.” “Mattresses?” “Yes, I think there are, and paints and things. Why do you ask?” “Jimmy,” said Angel quickly, “do you smell anything?” Jimmy sniffed. “Yes,” he said quickly. “Quick, the windows!” They made a rapid search of the room. In a corner Jimmy unearthed a rusty cavalry saber. “That’s the thing,” said Angel, and started to prise loose the solid shutter; but the wood was unyielding, and just as they had secured a purchase the blade snapped. “There is an old ax in the cupboard,” cried the girl, who apprehended the hidden danger. With a yell of joy Angel dragged forth an antiquated battle-ax, and attacked the shutter afresh. With each blow the wood flew in big splinters, but fast as he worked something else was moving faster. Angel had not mistaken the smell of petrol, and now a thin vapor of smoke flowed into the room from underneath the door, and in tiny spirals through the interstices of the floorboards. Angel stopped exhausted, and Jimmy picked up the ax and struck it true, then after one vigorous stroke a streak of daylight showed in the shutter. The room was now intolerably hot, and Angel took up the ax and hacked away at the oaken barrier to life. “Shall we escape?” asked the girl quietly. “Yes, I think so,” said Jimmy steadily. “I shall not regret to-night,” she faltered. “Nor I,” said Jimmy in a low voice, “whatever the issue is. It is very good to love once in a lifetime, even if that once is on the brink of the grave.” Her lips quivered, and she tried to speak. Angel was hard at work on the window, and his back was toward them, and Jimmy bent and kissed the girl on the lips. The window was down! Angel turned in a welter of perspiring triumph. “Outside as quick as dammit!” he cried. Angel had found a rope in the smaller room in his earlier search, and this he slipped round the girl’s waist. “When you get down run clear of the smoke,” he instructed her, and in a minute she found herself swinging in mid-air, in a cloud of rolling smoke that blinded and choked her. She felt the ground, and staying only to loose the rope, she ran outward and fell exhausted on a grassy bank. In a few minutes the two men were by her side. They stood in silence contemplating the conflagration, then Kathleen remembered. “The book, the book!” she cried. “It’s inside my shirt,” said the shameless Angel. CHAPTER XIII CONNOR TAKES A HAND