‘The gunpowder—I made it go off, and it has burnt poor Ada’s face! Mr. Saunders is there, and she screams—’ Phyllis finding herself ready to roar, left off speaking, and laying her head on the table, burst into an agony of crying, while Mr. Devereux was too much exhausted to address her; at last she exclaimed: ‘I hear the nursery door; he is going!’ She flew to the door, and listened, and then called out, ‘Emily, Jane, here is Cousin Robert!’ Jane came down, leaving Emily to finish hearing Mr. Saunders’s directions. She was even more shocked at her cousin’s looks than Phyllis had been, and though she tried to speak cheerfully, her manner scarcely agreed with her words. ‘It is all well, Robert, I am sorry you have been so frightened. It is but a slight affair, though it looks so shocking. There is no danger. But, oh, Robert! you ought not to be here. What shall we do for you? you are quite knocked up.’ ‘Oh! no,’ said Mr. Devereux, ‘I am only a little out of breath. A terrible report came to me, and I set off to learn the truth. I should like to hear what Mr. Saunders says of her.’ ‘I will call him in here before he goes,’ said Jane; ‘how tired you are; you have not been out before.’ ‘Only to the gate to speak to Rotherwood yesterday, and prevent him from coming in,’ said Mr. Devereux, ‘but I have great designs for Sunday. They come home to-morrow, do not they?’ Jane was much relieved by hearing her cousin talk in this manner, and answered, ‘Yes, and a dismal coming home it will be; it is too late to let them know.’ Mr. Saunders now entered, and gave a very favourable account of the patient, saying that even the scars would probably disappear in a few weeks. His gig had come from Raynham, and he offered to set Mr. Devereux down at the parsonage, a proposal which the latter was very glad to accept. Emily and Jane had leisure, when they were gone, to inquire into the manner of the accident. Phyllis answered that Maurice said that her banging the door had made the powder go off. Jane then asked where Maurice was, and Phyllis reporting that he was in his own room, she repaired thither, and knocked twice without receiving an answer. On her call, however, he opened the door; she saw that he had been in tears, and hastened to tell him Mr. Saunders’s opinion. He fastened the door again as soon as she had entered. ‘If I could have thought it!’ sighed he. ‘Fool that I was, not to lock the door!’ ‘Then you were not there? Phyllis says that she did it by banging the door. Is not that nonsense?’ ‘Not at all. Did I not read to you in the _Year Book of Facts_ about the patent signal rockets, which explode with the least vibration, even when a carriage goes by? Now, mine was on the same principle. I was making an experiment on the ingredients; I did not expect to succeed the first time, and so I took no precautions. Well! Pyrotechnics are a dangerous science! Next time I study them it shall be at the workshop at the Old Court.’