He knew that not a moment was to be lost; and though he approached her bedside with a feeling of real pain, from the shock he was about to give her, there was but one course to be pursued: and, springing forward, he drew back the curtains. "Forgive me!" he cried, "but the house is on fire--not a moment is to be lost! Your life is at stake, and you must pardon me if I use but scanty ceremony!" "Leave me! Leave me, then, Mr. Burrel, and let me rise!" she exclaimed, gazing in his face with all the wild surprise natural to one wakened from their sleep by such tidings. "Miss Delaware, moments are life!" replied Burrel, hastily. "Even while I speak our only chance may be cut off." The gathering smoke and the rushing sound of the flames bore to his own ear, as well as to that of the fair girl who lay pale and trembling before him, the certainty that he spoke no more than truth; and, without farther pause, he stooped over her, wrapped the bedclothes round her as tenderly and delicately as a mother would wrap her young infant from the wintry wind, and, catching her up in his arms, he bore her out into the corridor. All before them was a scene of mingled smoke and flame. The wainscoting of the corridor, the balustrades, the cornices, were all charred, blackened, and catching fire in a thousand places. The blaze was rushing up from below, toward the skylight, which had unfortunately been left open, and gave an additional draught. Wherever an open door presented itself, the flames were seen rushing in, licking the door-posts and the wainscoting; the heat was scorching; the smoke was suffocating; and every step that Burrel took forward, he felt uncertain whether the beams over which he trod would not give way beneath his feet. Still, however, he strode on, till he reached the spot where the flames were rushing up the great staircase more furiously than any where else, from the additional mass of fuel that there supplied the fire. His foot was on the edge of the landing, to cross over toward the stone stairs, and he had just time--warned by a sudden crash--to draw back, when the whole staircase and part of the corridor above it gave way, and fell into the vestibule below. It was a fearful sight; but he was not a man to leave any chance of safety to be snatched from him by terror. The rest of the corridor beyond the gap appeared more sound than that he had already past. He remembered having seen a side-door in his own room, which he had just left behind; and re-treading his steps, he entered the chamber, drove in the door he had remarked--which was but weakly fastened--with a single kick, and running through a room, the tenant of which had made his escape, he passed on into a dressing-room, and thence regained the corridor, beyond the point where it had been connected with the great staircase.