Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries--of the crowd approaching. "My God!--_too late_!" For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies--a blaze that grew with every second--illuminating with its flare the woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of the hill. "Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow--there must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!--spite of Mr. Daunt and the perlice!" Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held his tongue, scowling. Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a moment. "My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her--"And tell them to bring the car!" "Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm about her. "But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him--because I should be in his way." Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place, with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him, beckoned to her. "Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do all that can be done, and I'll send back messages." She shook her head. "I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks." There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within reach. Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of frightened and chattering servants--gazing in despairing rage at the ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries, one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury on a community that would not give them their way. Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to Wilmington earlier! "My fault!--my fault!"