Mumford closed the door of the room, shutting out Cobb and the cook and the housemaid. He repeated the story Cobb had told him, and quietly urged the improbability of his wife's explanation. Miss Derrick, he pointed out, was lying prostrate from severe burns; the fire must have been accidental, but the accident, to be sure, was extraordinary enough. Thereupon Mrs. Mumford's wrath turned against Cobb. What business had such a man--a low-class savage--in _her_ drawing-room? He must have come knowing that she and her husband were away for the evening. 'You can question him, if you like,' said Mumford. 'He's out there.' Emmeline opened the door, and at once heard a cry of pain from upstairs. Mumford, also hearing it, and seeing Cobb's misery-stricken face by the light of the hall lamp, whispered to his wife: 'Hadn't you better go up, dear? Dr. Billings may think it strange.' It was much wiser to urge this consideration than to make a direct plea for mercy. Emmeline did not care to have it reported that selfish distress made her indifferent to the sufferings of a friend staying in her house. But she could not pass Cobb without addressing him severely. 'So _you_ are the cause of this!' 'I am, Mrs. Mumford, and I can only say that I'll do my best to make good the damage to your house.' 'Make good I fancy you have strange ideas of the value of the property destroyed.' Insolence was no characteristic of Mrs. Mumford. But calamity had put her beside herself; she spoke, not in her own person, but as a woman whose carpets, curtains and bric-a-brac have ignominiously perished. 'I'll make it good,' Cobb repeated humbly, 'however long it takes me. And don't be angry with that poor girl, Mrs. Mumford. It wasn't her fault, not in any way. She didn't know I was coming; she hadn't asked me to come. I'm entirely to blame.' 'You mean to say you knocked over the table by accident?' 'I did indeed. And I wish I'd been burnt myself instead of her.' He had suffered, by the way, no inconsiderable scorching, to which his hands would testify for many a week; but of this he was still hardly aware. Emmeline, with a glance of uttermost scorn, left him, and ascended to the room where the doctor was busy. Free to behave as he thought fit, Mumford beckoned Cobb to follow him into the front garden, where they conversed with masculine calm. 'I shall put up at Sutton for the night,' said Cobb, 'and perhaps you'll let me call the first thing in the morning to ask how she gets on.' 'Of course. We'll see the doctor when he comes down. But I wish I could understand how you managed to throw the lamp down.' 'The truth is,' Cobb replied, 'we were quarrelling. I'd heard something about her that made me wild, and I came and behaved like a fool. I feel just now as if I could go and cut my throat, that's the fact. If anything happens to her, I believe I shall. I might as well, in any case; she'll never look at me again.' 'Oh, don't take such a dark view of it.'