She thought of Winifred, and sighed a little. Why should she be forever craving after this strange hidden knowledge, after the taste of things bitter, when there was so much sweetness in life? The thought of Winifred's pure, gentle touch in flowers and delicate bloom of fruit and calm, transparent glass came over her like a rebuke. And then she smiled again, remembering how Winifred had coaxed her once to try and paint a bunch of roses, and how dismayed she had been at the egregious failure. No; the cobbler must not go beyond his last. “I don't suppose I am very wicked after all,” she said to herself. She rested her chin upon her hand and let her thoughts wander idly, building up a romance for Jack. He was a foundling, of noble parents, and Mrs. Burmester was only his foster mother. Then she roused herself with a little exclamation of disgust: “What a perfectly Durdleham solution!” The next moment, with an instinct common to folks whether at Durdleham or London, she sprang from her chair and cried: “There's something burning!” The room in fact was full of thin smoke, and, as Clytie rose, a snake of red flame ran up the curtains by the writing-desk. She rushed to them, but as soon as she had touched them, the folds being shaken out, the whole burst into a blaze. She fled to the door about to scream “Fire!” at the top of her voice. What happened next neither she nor John Kent could afterwards exactly explain. He was on his way downstairs when the door was suddenly thrown open and a stream of light burst on to the gloomy landing. Clytie ran almost into his arms crying, “My room is on fire!” and then he was tearing down blazing, fiery curtains, smothering them with rugs, and stamping out glowing masses of drapery amid much smoke and confusion. It did not take very long to extinguish the flames, but the struggle while it lasted was fierce and exciting. Clytie stood by watching him, her hand at her throat. It was a new sensation to her to have a man acting for her in an emergency. She had failed. She saw by the man's energy, his fearless dealing with the blazing mass, his strength, his violence, that she never could have succeeded. She admired him, was angry at it; felt herself a helpless woman, was angry at that too; wished that the danger had been a little greater, at which she was more angry than ever. However, when the last traces of the fire were extinguished, and the man stood before her, somewhat out of breath, wiping his forehead, this little train of emotions came to an end. She gazed piteously at her curtainless windows and scorched wainscoting. He turned and opened the window, whence the damp, gusty wind whirled the smoke in billowing drifts about the room. “There!” he said, with a breath of relief. “Oh, how can I thank you?” said Clytie. + “Don't,” he replied with cheerful laconism. “I am glad I was handy--for your sake as well as my own. I live upstairs.”