An excited, questioning group pressed about him. Every one seemed talking at once, but the only words that made any impression were Archdeacon's "Not a scratch," and his fervent "Thank Gods!"
The rescued—every one had been got out in some shape or other—were gathered on the edge of a wood at some distance from the conflagration and to windward of it.
The main building was doomed. Even now, it was little more than a shell enclosing a furnace at white heat.
The garages, stables, and kennels were never in danger; but the head gardener's cottage had gone up in a puff after catching from a rain of sparks wind-hurled against its thatched roof.
Some one thrust Carleigh into a great coat. He found he was wearing one an hour later, but remembered nothing of how he came by it. And he had been provided with slippers as well.
He was sitting on a damp, moss-grown boulder, and a stout woman, with strands of gray hair falling limply and dankly about her face, was addressing him in piteous tones.
The reflection from the fire made the night three times as bright as the ordinary English fine day, and he noted that his companion was wearing a bath-towel pinned about her in lieu of a skirt.
Her adipose shoulders were draped in a velour table-cover, and her right hand pressed against her ample bosom a framed photograph, with the glass-side outward. In general terms she was picturesque in the extreme.
"I do hope you can oblige me with a cigarette, dear Sir Caryll!"
They were the first words he remembered since Julian's repeated "Thank God!" The voice sounded more or less familiar, yet he couldn't place it, and the picture the lady presented failed to help him.