“Poor old fellow!” she said, “dear old fellow! I’m going to get better immediately now.”
“Try to go to sleep again,” he whispered, putting a kiss on each eyelid to keep them shut. “Please, my little, pale daisy.”
The eyelashes lay quite still, but the lips smiled up to him. Then, before she knew it, she was asleep [270] ]again, her breathing regular, her skin cool. And when she woke she was far on the road to recovery.
But down in the cottage, while Essie and Meg were struggling slowly up the beautiful tiring hill of convalescence, a terrible tragedy had happened.
In the middle of one night, Poppet, sleeping in a little made-up bed in the room with Mrs. Hassal, woke up hot and choking. One side of the room was in a sheet of fire; the curled, leaping tongues of flame came nearer every instant.
She sprang out of bed shrieking wildly, and pulled and shook poor little Mrs. Hassal, who, half suffocated with the smoke, lay motionless.
Pip slept at the Courtneys now, since the cottage was so taxed for room, Bunty and Peter across the passage, and Mr. Gillet had a camp bed in the sitting-room. No one had wakened till the little girl’s wild shrieks rang through the house; the smoke had stupefied them all.
Then there was a terrible scene of confusion. The door of the bedroom was in a blaze—all the wall adjacent; the flames were licking at the long French window; and the curtains already burning.
Mr. Gillet went back one second for his thick coat, which he had not put on at first; then, shielding his face with his arm, he sprang into the room through the window, calling to Bunty to stand outside.