"Ah, that is true!" Then in a moment his voice was heard over the crowd. "The thing to be done," he said, in a voice which was not loud, but which immediately silenced all the discussions and agitations round, "is to clear away the ruins. The fire will not burn downward--it has no food that way--it will exhaust itself. The young lady fell with the wall. If she is to be found, she will be found there." The men around all crowded about the spot from which the voice came. "Wha's that that's speaking?" "I see nobody." "What were you saying, sir?" "Whoever it is, it is the right thing," cried young Patrick from the yacht. "Harry, keep you the hose going on the house. I'll take the other work; and thank you for the advice, whoever you are." Mrs. Forrester too had heard this voice, and the command and calm in it gave to her troubled soul a new hope. She pushed her way through the crowd to the spot from whence it came. "Oh," she cried, "did you see my Oona fall? Did you see my Oona? No, no, it would not be her that fell. You are just deceived. Where is my Oona? Oh, sir, tell them where she is that they may find her, and we'll pray for you on our bended knees, night and morning, every day!" She threw herself on her knees, as she spoke, on the grass, putting up her quivering, feverish hands. The other mother, with a horror which she felt even in the midst of her misery, saw the man to whom this heartrending prayer was addressed, without casting even a glance at the suppliant at his feet, or with any appearance of interest in the proceedings he had advised, turn quietly on his heel and walk away. He walked slowly across the open space and disappeared upon the edge of the water with one glance upward to the blazing tower, taking no more notice of the anxious crowd collected there than if they had not existed. Nor did any one notice the strange spectator going away at the height of the catastrophe, when everybody far and near was roused to help. The men running hurriedly to work did not seem to observe him. The two old servants of the house, Symington and Macalister, stood crowding together out of the reach of the stream of water which was being directed upon the house. But Mrs. Methven took no note of them: only it gave her a strange surprise in the midst of her anguish to see that while her Walter's fate still hung in the balance, there was one who could calmly go away.