“I will be careful not to do so,” said I. “You have your own reasons, I suppose, for giving me this warning.”
“I have the best of reasons, Jim. She too had her experience of that room, and it was as terrible as ours.”
“Good heavens! I heard nothing of that. She did not sleep in that room?”
“Thank God, she didn’t. I arrived in time to save her.”
I need scarcely say that my interest was now fully aroused.
“Tell me what happened—if you dare tell it,” I said.
“You were abroad, and so you wouldn’t be likely to hear of the fire at The Grange,” said my friend, after a pause.
“I heard nothing of it.”
“It took place only two days before last Christmas. I had been in the south of France, where I had spent a month or two with my mother,—she cannot stand a winter at home,—and I had promised Sylvia to return to The Grange for Christmas. When I got to Northavon I found her and her mother and their servants at the Priory Hotel. The fire had taken place the previous night, and they found the hotel very handy when they hadn’t a roof of their own over their heads. Well, we dined together, and were as jolly as was possible under the circumstances until bedtime. I had actually said ‘Good night’ to Sylvia before I recollected what had taken place the previous Christmas Eve in the same house. I rushed upstairs, and found Sylvia in the act of entering the room—that fatal room. When I implored of her to choose some other apartment, she only laughed at first, and assured me that she wasn’t superstitious; but when she saw that I was serious—I was deadly serious, as you can believe, Jim——”
“I can—I can.”