When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears, Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house--left it untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have been within it. The whole thing had been a plot--the children taken away--the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying son had been also part of it. And as to the niece--what more probable than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,--and had placed her as spy and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set herself to it, was only too well known to Delia. Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not merely done this act by deputy. In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close. And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her. The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped. "There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"--shouted one of her own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used." At the gate, the police--looking askance especially at Miss Blanchflower--would have turned them back. But Delia asked for Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all the faces in the crowd, was made lurid--fantastic--by the glare of the flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously, she brushed away the mist of tears from her eyes. "Aye she's sorry now!"--said a stout farmer, bitterly, to his neighbour--"now that she's led them as is even younger than herself into trouble. My girl's in prison all along of her--and that woman as they do say is at the bottom of this business."