As a matter of fact Caleb had robbed Madame Oriano with perfect regularity for the last five years. The humble savings, to which from time to time with upturned eyes he would allude, were actually the small clippings and parings he had managed to make from her daily profits. He did not feel the least guilt in thus robbing her, for not merely could he claim that he was the only person who did rob her nowadays, but he could also claim that these robberies practically amounted to the dowry of her daughter. It was not as if the money were going out of the family. Whether, in the event of his failing to marry Letizia, Caleb would have made the least reparation is doubtful. He would have found another excuse for his behaviour. One of his principles was never to admit even to his tribal deity that he had been or was wrong. He could imagine nothing more corruptly humiliating than the Popish habit of confession. On the other hand, he was always willing to admit that he was liable to err, and he always prayed most devoutly to be kept free from temptation. In his dusty little office that morning the various emotions to which he had been subjected since yesterday began to react at last upon Caleb’s flabby body. Leaning forward upon his desk, he put his head down upon his folded arms and fell into a heavy sleep. He was awakened by a series of screams, and jumping off his stool he hurried out into the passage just as one of the girl apprentices enveloped in flames came rushing up the stairs from the basement. He tried to stop her from going higher, but she eluded him, and as she went flashing up the stairs toward the upper part of the house she screamed: “It was Arthur Wellington done it! Don’t laugh at him, Joe Hilton. Don’t laugh at him no more, or he’ll throw the stars on to the fire. Where’s a window? Where’s a window?” The wretched child vanished from sight, and the moment after a ghastly scream announced that she had found a window and flung herself from it into the street. Letizia’s spaniel came barking down from the room above. Simultaneously there was a frenzied knocking on the front door, flashes and crashes everywhere, smoke, more shrieks of agony, and at last a deafening explosion. It seemed to Caleb that the whole house was falling to pieces on top of him, as indeed when he was dragged out of the ruins he found that it had. CHAPTER III THE PROPOSAL