He leapt upstairs to Beryl Hermione Maud. But the smoke came from her room. He roared at the door and dashed upon it. It swung open. Flame alone held it. She was gone. Then he turned, and saw her on the narrow landing, choking and blinking through a cloud of smoke, as in a dream. “What the bloody—— Come outer that!” he yelled, and grabbed her sleeve. “Quick—it’ll be on us in a minute.” He shoved her before him to the stairs, but she drew back. “Who done it?” he gasped. “No-no. Stop. I done it. There was some paraffin in the cupboard there. And some matches. I started the wall where the paper was loose. It’ll be through in a jiffy.... No, I ain’t going down.” “What the devil.... What the—— Don’ be a fool. You can get out. I’ll come wiv yer. Quick—it’s catching the stairs!” There they stood in the golden haze, while tongues of flame lisped wickedly about them. The heat was insufferable, the smoke asphyxiating. Suddenly, through the crackling of wood, came a revolver shot. The Croucher leaned over the crazy banister. Wing Foo had found honourable death. Beryl Hermione Maud softly touched his arm. “Come in here. This room. It’ll get here last.” Something in her voice, her gesture, struck him silly. He couldn’t have commanded at that moment. He obeyed. When in the little room, she shut the door, and snakes of smoke crawled under it. Then she stepped quietly to him, put her hands about his face, and kissed him. * * * * * There, virtually, the story ends, though much happened between them before their course was run. There was talk, curious talk, the talk of a woman of thirty to the man of her life, monstrous to hear from a child to a boy of nineteen. There were embraces, garrulous silences, kisses, fears and tremblings. In those moments the Croucher awoke to a sense of the bigness of things. He became enveloped in something ... a kind of ... well, the situation and—oh, everything. The murder, the siege, all London waiting for him, and that sort of thing. It gave him a new emotion; he felt proud and clean all through. He felt, in his own phrase, like as though he was going to find something he’d been hunting for for years and forgotten. One would like to know more, perhaps, for it might help us to live, and teach us something of pity. But it is not to be known; and, after all, these were the little moments of their lives, sacred to themselves. One can conjecture what passed—the terribly inspired things that were said, the ridiculously tragic things that were done. One guesses that the Croucher stood mazed and dumb and blustering with gesture as Beryl stretched impassioned hands to him and screamed that she loved him, had loved him for years, as he went conqueringly about Limehouse, and that she had fired the house that they might die together.