Reginald Carne stood guarding the ladder for a few minutes. By this time the whole of the first floor was in a blaze, the flames rushing out with fury from every window. Seeing that he did not move, the doctor said at last:
"Well, we must risk it. Give me a stick, Carey, and we will make a try, anyhow."
"You can't go now," Mr. Armstrong said, suddenly; "look, the ladder is alight."
This was indeed the case. The flames had not absolutely touched it, but the heat was so great that it had been slowly charring, and a light flame had now suddenly appeared, and in a moment ten or twelve feet of the ladder were on fire.
"It is of no use," the doctor said, dropping the stick that Jacob Carey had just cut for him in the shrubbery; "we can do nothing for him now."
There was scarcely a word spoken among the little crowd of spectators on the lawn. Every moment was adding to their number as Mr. Volkes, the magistrate, and several other gentlemen rode up on horseback, and men came up from all the farmhouses and cottages within a circle of a couple of miles. All sorts of suggestions were made, but only to be rejected.
"It is one thing to save a man who wants to be saved," the doctor said, "but quite another thing to save one who is determined not to be saved." This was in answer to a proposal to fasten a stone on to a light line and throw it up on to the roof. "The man is evidently as mad as a March hare."
There could be no doubt of that. Reginald Carne, seeing that his assailants, as he considered them, could not get at him, was making gestures of triumph and derision at them. Now from the second floor windows, the flames began to spurt out, the glass clattering down on to the gravel below.
"Oh, father, what a pitiful sight!"
Mr. Armstrong turned. "What on earth brings you here, Mary? Run away, child. This is a dreadful business, and it will be haunting you."