‘Running pins into the fringe, I should think,’ replied Kingston, with a touch of petulance. Certainly Nurse Molly was making the oddest noise in her room overhead. In the silence that followed Kingston’s suggestions her unmethodical clatterings could be distinctly heard. ‘We must certainly ask her to be quiet--yes?’ said Gundred. Then she rose and went to the window. ‘Why should it be so stifling in here?’ she went on. ‘There is quite a gale outside. Only listen.’ She paused, and the roar of a great rushing wind was clearly evident. ‘The wind seems to get up very suddenly on these coasts,’ said Kingston. ‘Oh yes,’ answered Gundred; ‘all in a minute. Especially so late in the year. That is what makes the heat so extraordinary.’ She peered curiously out into the darkness. ‘Why, Kingston,’ she exclaimed, ‘it is actually snowing. How perfectly astonishing! Quite a number of snowflakes are falling. And Nurse Molly’s illumination is really too scandalous; I can see it glowing quite far out into the night, throbbing and flickering.’ She pulled back the catch, and threw the little window wide. Instantly, from above, a long, keen shaft of pure flame curled swiftly down into the room, licked round the casement like a dragon’s tongue, and was gone again. Gundred had self-possession enough to close the window, then she staggered back. The roaring sound overhead was louder now than ever. ‘The Castle is on fire,’ she remarked at last, after a heavy pause. Suddenly she felt elated by her sagacity. ‘The Castle is on fire,’ she repeated slowly. ‘I think we had better get out of this,’ said Kingston. ‘It’s that woman’s confounded candles upstairs. Ring the bell, Gundred, will you?’ He went to the door, and opened it. The passage, their one hope of reaching the body of the Castle, was an impassable mass of flame at its further end. Kingston came back into the room. Even now the full horror of the situation had not struck him. ‘I’m afraid we can’t escape that way,’ he said quietly. ‘The corridor is ablaze.’ Gundred, meanwhile, was vigorously pulling at the bell; in the silence that followed Kingston’s announcement she continued methodically at her task, and the knob could be heard slapping again and again into its socket as she released it. Kingston glanced from Gundred to Isabel. Isabel had said nothing hitherto. He waited poignantly to hear what she would suggest. At last she spoke. Her voice was strained with agony and terror. ‘And I--I cannot move,’ she said. ‘I am tied by the leg.’ Kingston turned furiously upon Gundred, who, in an access of vain frenzy, was rending and tearing the bell. ‘Leave off making that hideous row!’ he exclaimed. ‘What do you suppose is the use of it? Do you imagine the servants will come through three yards of fire to get us out?’ ‘What are we to do?’ asked Gundred feebly.