The inspector waved his hand towards the fire: "That's all in the hands of the firemen now. They had given up trying to save any of the furniture before you arrived. Since you left me I have been making inquiries, and I find that before anyone entered the house the room over the passage was burnt out, and that nothing is known up to this of the child or the servant. I got a description of both the nurse and the boy from your next-door neighbour, and sent it to the office. Word will be sent round from there, and the moment they have any news they are to forward it to me." "What had I better do, then?" said O'Donnell, who was in a state of feverish restlessness. "If you will take my advice," said the inspector, "you will go back to Mrs. O'Donnell, and stay with her. We shall certainly have the first news, and I will send it on to you." "I can't," he said; "I can't go back until I have the boy with me. I told her I would go to her the moment I found him, and if I went without him she would get a great shock, for her first impression would be that I had bad news about him, and I should be unable to get that idea out of her mind for a long time, if at all, before he was brought to us. I cannot, I will not go back without him," said O'Donnell, frantically. He now for the first time realised the fact that his boy might be lost to them for ever. "It will kill his mother," he added, "if anything happens to our child." Then he put his hand before his eyes, and turned away from the inspector. The inspector turned away from him, issued some unnecessary orders in a loud voice, and walked off. O'Donnell could not leave the spot. If good news were to come, that would be the first place it would reach. If it was his cruel fate that he should have to learn bad news, it should be extracted from the ashes of that blazing fire. No, he could not leave this spot. He could not return to his wife; and to go inquiring of neighbour after neighbour if he had seen Mark, would be triple pain upon pain, disappointment upon disappointment, suspense unhappily resolved on suspense unhappily renewed. By this time it was growing late. The fire had spent its fury. There was no danger of its spreading, and the roof of the doomed house was expected every moment to fall in. O'Donnell paced up and down restlessly inside the lines of police where the firemen were busy. Now and then he spoke a few words to the inspector. Now and then the inspector spoke a few cheering words to him. Still no message came from the theatre. Still no message came from the police-station. Another hour dragged its weary length along; and still no message, no news, no tidings of any kind. Gradually the inspector had seemed to lose hopefulness. He had begun to admit to Eugene it was strange they heard nothing of the woman or the boy. He looked at his watch. "Half-past eleven," he said. "I am surprised. And yet, I cannot but believe they have both escaped."