Rose, meanwhile, lay awake next door frowning over the same readiness, and then frowning at her own frowns, since what was it to her if Lewis Gordon were nice or nasty? He himself did not care what she thought, and would end by marrying his cousin, though in his heart of hearts---- Rose sat up in bed angrily. What did she know or care of Lewis Gordon's heart? _Dieu merci!_ Gwen Boynton was welcome to it, but she should not drag George Keene captive as she seemed welcome to do. George was too good to hang round a pretty woman, like Lewis---- This was intolerable. To escape the tyranny of thought she rose, slipped on her white dressing-gown, lit the lamp she had extinguished, and sat down to read a stiff book till she felt sleepy. The process was not a long one, for she was really fatigued, and ten minutes saw her turning down the lamp once more. What happened next she scarcely knew; only this--a glare of light--a feeble crash. Then fire in her eyes, her face, her hands--fire at her feet, licking along the thin carpet, soaking up the folds of her filmy dress. The bed lay close at hand; she was on it in a second, wrapping the blankets round her, and beating out the runnels of flame, with eyes, brain, and body absorbed in the immediate personal danger. When that was over, and she looked up, she sprang to her feet on the bed with a cry. The fire was everywhere, creeping up the sides of the tent, filling it with suffocating smoke. She wound her trailing skirts round her and made a dive for the first outlet--for her only chance of escape! The thick wadded curtain swinging aside let in a wind, making the smouldering cotton flame; but the next instant she was outside, constrained to pause, wondering if by chance it was nothing but a bad dream. For the camp lay serene and peaceful in the moonlight; not a sound, not a sign, even from her own tent. She stood positively irresolute, staring back at what she had left. Was it a dream? Then, suddenly a faint drift of smoke rose through a crevice in the cloth. 'Mr. Gordon!--Mr. Gordon!' She burst through the thick, guided by the light in his tent to the nearest help. 'Your knife--quick! my tent is on fire! Quick, or the whole camp will catch!' The blood was flowing from a cut over her forehead, one arm showed bare through scorched muslin, the draperies caught round her were singed and blackened, the stamp and smell of fire was on her from head to foot. Lewis, starting to his feet, stared at her. 'Oh, quick! please, quick! Your pen-knife--anything! Cut down the tents--Mr. Fitzgerald said it was the only----' He had grasped the position ere she could finish, snatched up a hunting-knife and was out; she, with a pen-knife, close at his heels. 'Good God! how the wind has risen,' he muttered, as they ran. 'No, not mine!--The mess-tent first; the wind is that way.'