With fallen hair and the red light over her from head to foot, she ran to the door; he followed. The door was burning, the oak stair threatened; flames were already showing in the hall. Delia wrung her hands, shrieking and moaning to herself, calling on the living and the dead in her distraction; she ran a little way down the wide stairs, then at sight of the flaming door fell back with a scream. “Ye should not have come,” said Lord Stair. “Your place is with those who lit the fire.” Her wild eyes lifted to his figure. “Do you think I am afraid for myself?” she cried. She came back to him with outstretched hands and thrown back head; as she stood there, poised above the smoking hallway with the flickering light and shade across her distorted face, she seemed as unearthly, as terribly strange as her surroundings. Lord Stair, gazing at her, saw the look in her eyes he had seen in his sister’s and in his own; it was as if there fronted him the evil genius of his house; once this woman had looked at him differently; as he stared at her he recalled that other expression, the other look her brown eyes had once held in place of the madness that flashed in them now. Certainly, she was mad; he saw her against the background of the polished stairway where the flames were reflected; he saw her lean back against the balustrade with those wild eyes upon him in her uplifted face; he noticed the crimson light on the long line of her throat and in the curve of her white lips. “Lord Stair.” She bent forward, touched him, the hideous noise of flames gaining power, the shouting and cracking of timbers filled the air with a terrible menace. “Lord Stair.” Her fingers touched his arm, closed round; and he could not escape from her face, turn his eyes away. “Speak to me,” she said; she was as calm as she had been frantic; her long hair, loosened, glowed a dusky red behind her marble white face. But he thought of his wife and would not. “I have nothing to say to you.” He caught hold of her, not tenderly nor roughly, indifferent, merely. “Make haste—down the stairs,” he said. “On the first landing you may cross the library and gain the garden.” The grasp tightened on her arm. “Come,” he commanded, and drew her after him, leading the way. She did not speak until he paused to open the library door, then she looked back into the flame-lit hall and cried out she would die. Paying no heed he was dragging her into the dark room when something rushed out of the door, between them and up the stair. “What was that?” cried Lord Stair; he let go his hold upon the woman and stepped back. Half-way up the stairs a little black cat peered through the oaken rails with ears cocked and its green eyes glittering with excitement; round its neck was a tumbled bow of scarlet. For a moment the man and the animal gazed at each other, then the Earl began reascending the stairs.