She seemed to listen, her face falling into shadow. “To the heart,” she repeated, with a catch in her voice. “It would--it would, for all your secret laughing.” CHAPTER XXXVIII. Pushing onward at what fury of speed the dangerous state of the road permitted, Tuke, like a good captain, would not subordinate his prudence to his eagerness. True, he had nothing but a vague sense that some evil was abroad, to justify his mood of suspicion; yet, forasmuch as this mood _was_ unaccountable, it behoved him to move circumspectly through the first stages of reconnoitre. Therefore it was that coming to the top of the long dip, on the crest of whose further slope stood Mr. Breeds’s little ill-omened tavern, he called to Dennis and, pulling on his left rein, cantered his horse on to the easterly downs, with the idea of making a _détour_ that should bring him into the Winchester road a half-mile above Stockbridge. This was judicious enough; but it was some aggravation of his impatience to find now with what infinite caution it was necessary to proceed over the frozen wastes of grass and crumbling chalk patches. A rushed camp of mole-hills--a film of cat-ice, roofing some unsuspected hollow, trodden upon--and all his fine purposes of help might end in a broken neck. Fortunately there was a young wintry moon, whose radiance, struck back from the snow, made such a spectral twilight as it was possible to steer through. He groaned to himself as yard by yard they crept upon their way and still the red glow seemed as far off as ever. Once indeed, looking as in a dream, he fancied they must have wandered widely afield, away from, instead of towards the fire; for then the latter seemed to have sunk in a little glimmer amongst distant hills, as if many miles separated it from them. But the next moment there came a great bellying upward of smoke, distinctly evident to their eyes; and immediately the pall was attacked and devoured by a dozen shooting tongues of flame, that slobbered myriads of sparks like blood as the monster of fire rent its prey. “The roof has gone in, sir.” “Aye, aye, Dennis. We must be near the road by now, I think.” Not so near as he hoped and desired. It was a full hour and a half from the start when they broke at last into the Winchester highway and went down cautiously into the village. For many minutes before, there had been no doubt in Tuke’s mind but that his worst apprehensions would be realized. The “First Inn” it was that was alight--the old house endeared to him, in a sense, by more than one tender memory. “How did it happen?” he asked of himself; and thought half-comically--“I must assure the poor girl it was like enough to have been spontaneous combustion, from the long warmth of hospitality it carried in its heart.” Then he rebuked his levity “Betty, Betty,” he thought, “are you safe, my dear?”--and at the fear the word evoked his breath caught in something like a sob.