It was a sultry August night, and Bride felt no disposition for sleep. She had acquired during her mother’s long illness the habit of wakefulness during the earlier hours of the night, when she was frequently beside the sick-bed, ministering to the wants of the patient. Since death had robbed her of that office, she had fallen into the habit of spending the earlier hours of the night in meditation and prayer, together with a study of the Scriptures; and to-night, after her old nurse had brushed out her abundant hair, and arranged it for the night, and after she had exchanged her dress for a long straight wrapper which was both cooler and more comfortable, she dismissed the old servant with a few sweet words of thanks, and setting her windows wide open to the summer night, knelt down beside the one which looked out over the moonlit bay, and was soon lost to all outward impression by her absorption in her own prayerful meditations. The hour of midnight had boomed from the clock-tower before she moved, and then she was aroused less by that sound than by a gradual consciousness that there was in the sky, to which her eyes were frequently raised, a glow that was not of the moon, but was more ruddy in tone, and seemed to absorb into itself the softer and whiter light. As she remarked this, her thoughts came back to earth again, and rising from her knees, she leaned out of the window, and then crossed the room hastily towards that other window looking away in the direction of Pentreath, and then at once she understood. A tall column of fire arose from behind the belt of woodland which hid the distant town, a beautiful but awful pillar of fire, reaching up as it seemed to the very heavens, and swaying gently to and fro in the light summer breeze. For a few moments Bride stood gazing at it with eyes in which pain and wonderment were gathering, and then a stifled exclamation broke from her lips. “God forgive them!--that is the work of incendiaries!” She stood rigid and motionless a few moments longer, and then with rapid fingers she began unfastening her wrapper, and clothing herself in one of her dark walking dresses. Her heart was beating fast and furiously. Her face was very pale, for she was taking a resolution that cost her a great effort; but she seemed to see her duty clearly mapped out before her, and she came of a race that was not wont to shrink from the path of duty because the road was rough.