The fire got hold now. It burned up fiercely, bringing down upon itself the upper letters, which toppled into the heart of the miniature conflagration much as the staircase must have toppled on to the stairs below, in the bigger conflagration of yesterday. How familiar the handwriting was! How some of the sentences shone out as if written in fire on black sheets: "Love like ours can never fade." The words faded out at once, as the dying letters gave up the ghost--the ghost of dead love. Janet gazed fascinated. Another letter fell in, opening as it fell, disclosing a photograph. Fred's face looked full at Janet for a moment out of the little greedy flames that licked it up. Janet drew back trembling, suddenly sick unto death. Fred's face! Fred's writing! She trembled so violently that she did not notice that the smoke was no longer going up the chimney, but was filling the room. The chimney was evidently blocked higher up. She was so paralysed that she did not notice a light footfall in the passage, and a figure in the doorway. Janet was not of those who see behind their backs. The painter, alarmed by the smoke, stood for a moment, brush in hand, looking fixedly at her. Then his eye fell on the smoking papers in the grate, and he withdrew noiselessly. It was out now. The second fire was out. What violent passions had been consumed in it! That tiny fire in the grate seemed to Janet more black with horror than the appalling scene of havoc in the next room. She knelt down and parted the hot films of the little bonfire. There was no scrap of paper left. The thing was done. Then she noticed the smoke, and her heart stood still. She pushed the cinders into the back of the grate with her hands, replaced the hydrangeas in the fire-place, and ran to the window. But the wood-work was warped by the heat. It would not open. She wasted time trying to force it, and then broke the glass and let in the air. But the air only blew the smoke out into the passage. It was like a bad dream. She seized the prostrate door, and tried to raise it. But it was too heavy for her. She stood up panting, watching the telltale smoke curl lightly through the doorway. More steps in the passage. She went swiftly into the next room, and stood in the doorway. The lift man came cautiously down the passage, accompanied by an alert, spectacled young man, notebook in hand. The lift man bore the embarrassed expression of one whose sense of duty has succumbed before too large a tip. The young man had the decided manner of one who intends to have his money's worth. "Where are we now?" he said, scribbling for dear life, his spectacles turning all ways at once. "I don't like this smoke. Can the beastly place be on fire still?" But the lift man had caught sight of Janet, and the sight of her was obviously unwelcome. "The floors ain't safe here," he said confusedly. "There's a deal more damage to be seen in the left wing."