"Telborn has gone for the doctors," she went on. "Sir Guy was burned, too, you know, most fearfully. It was he who saved Mrs. Darling."
"If I'd only known where her room was," Carleigh reproached himself, forgetting that it had been all he could do to save himself.
"Sir Guy seems to have known."
Oh, how he resented that! Still it was best to be silent. If there was the double meaning he suspected he would be the last one to point it out.
"She was already safe, it seems. Had got downstairs without a mark, better dressed than any of us. But she went back."
"Went back?"
"Yes. It was suicidal. Every one said so. Every one begged her. But she wouldn't listen. She had forgotten something. Fancy that!"
Carleigh ground his teeth. The face of Rosamond Veynol was forgotten again. Anxiety for Nina tore at his heart and rent his soul in pieces. Now she was doubly precious.
And that Waldron fellow! He hoped he would die. Otherwise gratitude might play a part. It probably would—and that would mean for himself her utter loss.
"We waited five minutes," his informant continued. "It seemed ages. She didn't return. And just then Sir Guy appeared. We were all women there, you know. We told him, and he dashed off at once. It seems she reached her room quite safely. But before she could turn round she was penned in. Sir Guy went to her through a curtain of flame."