It was eleven o'clock at night, and the house was hushed in silence--save in that suite of rooms where the invalid and his nurses were hardly ever at rest. One of the men servants slept in his clothes on a truckle bed in the corridor, ready for service in any emergency. Every one else had gone to bed, except Ida, who sat at her window, looking out at the wild windy sky and the forest trees swaying in the gale. The day had been rainy and tempestuous, and the wind was still raging--just such a wind as Ida remembered upon Bessie's birthday, the day of that terrible storm which had cost so many lives, and had made Reginald Palliser master of Wimperfield. She sat gazing idly at the sky, in sheer despondency and weariness. Her devotional books, which had been her chief comfort in these dark days and nights, lay unopened on her table. The effort to read any other kind of literature had been abandoned for the last day or two. Her mind refused to understand the words which her eyes mechanically perused. She could only read such books as spoke of comfort to a weary soul, of hope beyond a sinful world. She had eaten hardly anything for the last few days, living on cups of tea, and semi-transparent slices of bread and butter. Her nights had been almost sleepless, her brief snatches of slumber disturbed by hideous dreams. She was thoroughly worn out in body and mind, and as she sat by the open window loosely dressed in a tea gown, with a china-crape shawl wrapped round her shoulders, the monotonous moaning of the wind in the elms had a soothing sound like a lullaby, and hushed her to sleep. She lay back in her low luxurious chair, with her head half buried in the comfortable down pillow, and slept as she had not slept for a month. It was the slumber of sheer exhaustion, deep and sweet, and long--very long; for when she opened her eyes and looked about her, awakened by a strange oppression of the chest, there was the livid light of earliest dawn in the room--a light that changed all at once to a bright red glow, vivid as the sky at sundown. The oppression of her breath increased, she felt suffocated. The livid dawn, the crimson sunset, changed to gray; the atmosphere around her grew thick; there was a smarting sensation in her eyes, a stifling sensation in her throat. Mechanically, not knowing what she did, she began to grope her way to the door. But in that thickening atmosphere she did not know which was the door--her outspread arms clasped some heavy piece of furniture--the wardrobe. She leaned against it exhausted, helpless stupified by that horrible smoke; and as she leaned there a wild shrill shriek pealed out from below--the cry of 'Fire!' Again and again that dreadful cry resounded, in a woman's piercing treble. Then came a hubbub of other voices--without, within--she could not tell where, or how near, or how far--but all the sounds seemed distant.