"I have received a message, which tells me, friends, that Aston Manor is now open, for the women and children who may like to take refuge in it; and you may put any of your furniture, which you can save, in the stables; there it will be in safety. I understand that there are many fine pictures, statues, and ornaments of every kind there, and I need not ask you to take care of them." Every one listened with surprise to this unusual news; but he bade them hasten to send their wives and children away. "We shall be able to act better when they are gone, sir," he said, bowing, for the first time, to Mr. Ware, who failed not to applaud a measure, at once humane and judicious, since it gave an object, to the discontented, to protect the mansion should it be necessary. In a short time, all the children had left the scene; but most of the women remained, employed in dragging the furniture from the fire, either laying it in heaps, or carrying it towards the stables. Suddenly a frightful yell burst upon every ear. "Some poor creature is in danger," said the stranger, who was the first to speak--"I thought you had searched the burning houses. Come all of you." So saying, he sprang to the nearest cottage, whose blazing roof threatened every moment to fall in. Clair followed him closely, crying aloud-- "Do not venture, the roof is coming down--I have searched that place myself." But, as he said so, another yell sounded upon their ears. "The door is tied here," said the stranger, tearing at a well-knotted cord with impatient violence--but it would not give way. "Help me then," he said to Clair; and, leaning his shoulder against the door, the hinge snapped, though the cord remained firm. The apartment, on which they thus entered, was bare of anything, save one living object. Both started, as they beheld the wretched Rogers, tied round the waist, by a thick cord, to a strong piece of wood which ran up the side to the ceiling. His eyes were glaring and distended--his face filled with death-like anguish. Blood was gushing from his mouth and nostrils, for he had ruptured a blood vessel in his attempts to free his hands and mouth from the bandages, which appeared to have been tied over them. "Wretched man, repent before it is too late," said the stranger, as he hastened to undo the cords which bound him. It was not an easy matter, and every moment seemed an age of peril to the three. Rogers opened his eyes, wide with horror, upon the stranger, for a moment, and then turned aside his head and fainted. The room was heated to suffocation, and fast filling with smoke. Clair felt sick with horror; but the stranger, whose thought seemed action, raised Rogers in his arms. With his head laid carefully on his shoulder, and his own hands and garments dripping in his blood, he bore him out, assisted by Clair. Scarcely had they cleared the threshold, when the roof fell in, and the cottage was in ruins.