The gentleman looked round at her, still grasping the wrists of his captive, who muttered on wildly, lost in a forest of execrations without meaning. He seemed satisfied that the child could be trusted, and determined at any rate to try a desperate expedient to get that horrible knife out of the maniac's clutch. The only other course would be to call or send for help. Send whom? This baby out in the snow again? Heaven forbid! As for the woman, _she_ was no use. He could hear her hysterics in the next room. No!--if the child only dared do exactly as he told her, he would soon have that knife safe out of the way. "Look here, my dear, where's the box of matches--the lucifer matches? Now don't you be frightened, but do as I tell you. You light a match!" Lizarann obeyed dutifully, though her hand shook. "Now, you know, if you blow that match out, there'll be a red spark, won't there?... Very well then, or _yass_, if you prefer it. Now I want you just to touch your father's hand with it ... oh, he's your uncle, is he?... well!--now you'll have to light another.... Now you touch his hand with it--don't you be frightened." Lizarann followed her instructions without question. Whatever the gentleman said was right. _Her_ duty was obedience. But she broke out in spasmodic terror at the result of what she had supposed to be some curious experiment; not to be understood by her, but certainly beneficial. And Athelstan Taylor needed all his strength to retain the hand that was scorched, as his prisoner--or rather patient--gave a great plunge and a yell, as the fire touched him. But he kept his grip, though it was his left hand against the delirious man's right; and the knife, relinquished in the uncontrollable start, was left lying on the floor as he dragged him across the room away from it. He could breathe freer now that the knife was out of the way. He inferred afterwards that the whole thing had happened very quickly; for the railway-occurrence without seemed to explain itself as a convoy of empty trucks shunting on a siding to allow an express to shriek past--an express that cared nothing for blizzards, and came with a vengeance, just as he gave his last instructions to Lizarann, waiting a moment for that little person's terror to subside. "That's a good little girl. Now pick up that knife and take it away. And then ... well!--and then ... shut the door after you and go to bed, for God's sake, and get warm.... What? ... no!--never mind Aunt What's-her-name?... don't say anything to her--only go to bed too. What did you say her name was? Aunt Stingy?" It didn't seem probable, but the little maiden evidently felt surprised at its being thought the reverse. She confirmed it with gravity, and was departing, small and bitterly cold, but intensely responsible, when the new Policeman called her back. "Look here, poppet!--you stand the street-door wide open, and then you go to bed. Now shut the door."