If the sight viewed from a distance was so terrible as to appal a whole countryside, if, on those who gazed at it from vantage spots of safety, and did not guess at the dreadful details, it left an impression of terror never to be effaced, what was it to the three women who, in the Square itself, watched the onward march of the flames towards them, were blinded by the glare, choked by the smoke, deafened by the roar? Whom distance saved from no feature of the scene played under their windows: who could shun neither the savage cries of the drunken rabble, dancing before the doomed houses, nor the sight, scarce less amazing, of the insensibility which watched the march of the flames and stretched forth not a finger to stay them! Who, chained by Lady Sybil’s weakness to the place where they stood, saw house after house go up in flames, until all the side of the Square adjoining their own was a wall of fire; and who then were left to guess the progress, swift or slow, which the element was making towards them! For whom the copper-hued fog above them must have seemed, indeed, the roof of a furnace, from which escape grew moment by moment less likely? XXXIV HOURS OF DARKNESS Long before this the women of the house had fled, taking Lady Sybil’s maid with them. And dreadful as was the situation of those who remained, appalling as were the fears of two of them, they were able to control themselves; the better because they knew that they had no aid but their own to look to, and that their companion was helpless. Fortunately Lady Sybil, who had watched the earlier phases of the riot with the detachment which is one of the marks of extreme weakness, had at a certain point turned faint, and demanded to be removed from the window. She was ignorant, therefore, of the approach of the flames and of the imminence of the peril. She had even, in spite of the uproar, dozed off, after a few minutes of trying irritation, into an uneasy sleep.