He strolled on with bowed head, and remembered the night when he sat in Mr. Osborn's little room, staring at the carpenter's bench, and struggling between belief and doubt. He had said: "I want to be saved. I want the day when you can tell me I have gained everlasting salvation." And Mr. Osborn had answered him: "The day will come; but it will not be my voice that tells you." It was dark, but he did not mind the darkness. He walked on, not knowing where he was going, and time passed without his thinking Of the lateness of the hour. He had forgotten his wife and his home; he had forgotten Norah; he had forgotten all his pain. Then the odd and unexpected character of an external object made an impression sufficiently strong to rouse him from his reverie, and he thought dreamily: "What is that? Why, yes, it is what I was asking for--a blink of light." Suddenly, straight in front of him, he saw the gleam again. What could it be? Then something right ahead, in the darkness of the trees, a bright flicker--as might be made by a man waving a lantern. There it was again, but brighter than before, quite a long way off. And he walked on faster. Then, looking up, he saw a red glow in the sky, and he thought: "The heath is on fire." He walked faster, saw a column of crimson smoke and a great tongue of flame above the pine trees, and thought: "It is much nearer than the heath. It must be right on the edge of the wood." He ran now, and soon the track was brightly lighted and confused sounds grew plain--shouting of voices, the galloping of a horse, the clamorous ringing of a bell. The trees opened out and he was running along the high ground above those broken fences, looking down at the Orphanage gardens, at men clustered like black ants, at solid buildings that seemed to send forth sheets, lakes, and seas of flame. He rushed down the slope, burst through wooden barriers and leafy screens, shouting as he came. In the glare on the upper terraces there were many people--men, women, children; some of the men vainly endeavoring to fix and work unused hose-pipes; others dragging away furniture, curtains, carpets that lay in heaps near the central hall; the greatest number of them struggling with ladders, advancing and recoiling in front of the low block at the further end of the building. "Are they all out?" shouted Dale. "Have they all been got out?" Terror-stricken voices answered as he passed. "There's seven they can't get at.... Seven have been left.... They're the little ones." And running in the fiery glare, he thought: "Yes, mercy has been vouchsafed me. This is my chance."