_His_ ideal had faded out
before the first touch of disillusioning fact; _hers_ persisted still,
in spite of all the rudest assaults that the plainest facts could make
upon it. Thank heaven for that wonderful idealising power of a good
woman, which enables her to walk unsullied through this sordid world,
unknowing and unseeing. At last one night, one terrible windy night in December, Ethel
Sutherland was wakened from her sleep in the quiet little school-house
by a fearful glare falling fiercely upon her bedroom window. She jumped
up hastily and rushed to the little casement to look out towards the
place whence the glare came. One thought alone rose instinctively in her
white little mind--Could it be at Cecil's Asylum? Oh, horror, yes; the
whole building was in flames, and if Cecil were taken--even poor mad
imbecile Cecil--what, what on earth would then be left her? Huddling on a few things hastily, anyhow, Ethel rushed out wildly into
the street, and ran with incredible speed where all the crowd of the
town was running together, towards the blazing Asylum. The mob knew her
at once, and recognized her sad claim; they made a little lane down the
surging mass for her to pass through, till she stood beside the very
firemen at the base of the gateway. It was an awful sight--poor mad
wretches raving and imploring at the windows, while the firemen plied
their hose and brought their escapes to bear as best they were able on
one menaced tier after another. But Ethel saw or heard nothing, save in
one third floor window of the right wing, where Cecil Mitford stood, no
longer speechless and imbecile, but calling loudly for help, and
flinging his eager arms wildly about him. The shock had brought him back
his reason, for the moment at least: oh, thank God, thank God, he saw
her, he saw her! With a sudden wild cry Ethel burst from the firemen who tried to hold
her back, leaped into the burning building and tore up the blazing
stairs, blinded and scorched, but by some miracle not quite suffocated,
till she reached the stone landing on the third story. Turning along the
well-known corridor, now filled with black wreaths of stifling smoke,
she reached at last Cecil's ward, and flung herself madly, wildly into
his circling arms. For a moment they both forgot the awful death that
girt them round on every side, and Cecil, rising one second superior to
himself, cried only "Ethel, Ethel, Ethel, I love you; forgive me!" Ethel
pressed his hand in hers gently, and answered in an agony of joy, "There
is nothing to forgive, Cecil; I can die happy now, now that I have once
more heard you say you love me, you love me." Hand in hand they turned back towards the blazing staircase, and reached
the window at the end where the firemen were now bringing their
escape-ladder to bear on the third story. The men below beckoned them to
come near and climb out on to the ladder, but just at that moment
something behind seemed incomprehensibly to fascinate and delay Cecil,
so that he would not move a step nearer, though Ethel led him on with
all her might. She looked back to see what could be the reason, and
beheld the floor behind them rent by the flames, and a great gap
spreading downward to the treasurer's room. On the tiled floor a few
dozen pence and shillings and other coins lay, white with heat, among
the glowing rubbish; and the whole mass, glittering like gold in the
fierce glare, seemed some fiery cave filled to the brim with fabulous
wealth. Cecil's eye was riveted upon the yawning gap, and the corners of
his mouth twitched horribly as he gazed with intense interest upon the
red cinders and white hot coin beneath him. Instinctively Ethel felt at
once that all was lost, and that the old mania was once more upon him. Clasping her arm tight round his waist, while the firemen below shouted
to her to leave him and come down as she valued her life, she made one
desperate effort to drag him by main force to the head of the ladder. But Cecil, strong man that he was, threw her weak little arm impetuously
away, as he might have thrown a two-year-old baby's, and cried to her in
a voice trembling with excitement, "See, see, Ethel, at last, at last;
there it is, there it is in good earnest. JOHN CANN'S TREASURE!" Ethel seized his arm imploringly once more. "This way, darling," she
cried, in a voice choked by sobs and half stifled with the smoke. "This
way to the ladder." But Cecil broke from her fiercely, with a wild light in his big blue
eyes, and shouting aloud, "The treasure, the treasure!" leaped with
awful energy into the very centre of the seething fiery abyss. Ethel
fell, fainting with terror and choked by the flames, on to the burning
floor of the third story. The firemen, watching from below, declared
next day that that crazy madman must have died stifled before he touched
the heap of white hot ruins in the central shell, and the poor lady was
insensible or dead with asphyxia full ten minutes before the flames
swept past the spot where her lifeless body was lying immovable. _ISALINE AND I._


I. "Well, Mademoiselle Isaline," I said, strolling out into the garden,
"and who is the young _cavalier_ with the black moustache?" "What, monsieur," answered Isaline; "you have seen him? You have been
watching from your window? We did not know you had returned from the
Aiguille." "Oh, yes, I've been back for more than an hour," I replied; "the snow
was so deep on the Col that I gave it up at last, and made up my mind
not to try it without a guide." "I am so glad," Isaline said demurely. "I had such fears for monsieur. The Aiguille is dangerous, though it isn't very high, and I had been
very distractedly anxious till monsieur returned." "Thanks, mademoiselle," I answered, with a little bow. "Your solicitude
for my safety flatters me immensely. But you haven't told me yet who is
the gentleman with the black moustache." Isaline smiled. "His name is M. Claude," she said; "M. Claude Tirard,
you know; but we don't use surnames much among ourselves in the Pays de
Vaud. He is the schoolmaster of the commune." "M. Claude is a very happy man, then," I put in. "I envy his good
fortune." Isaline blushed a pretty blush. "On the contrary," she answered, "he has
just been declaring himself the most miserable of all mankind. He says
his life is not worth having." "They always say that under those peculiar circumstances," I said. "Believe me, mademoiselle, there are a great many men who would be glad
to exchange their own indifferently tolerable lot for M. Claude's
unendurable misery." Isaline said nothing, but she looked at me with a peculiar inquiring
look, as if she would very much like to know exactly what I meant by it,
and how much I meant it. And what _did_ I mean by it? Not very much after all, I imagine; for
when it comes to retrospect, which one of us is any good at analyzing
his own motives?