"May!" called her mother. "Are you never coming? I can't be kept waiting all night."
May hesitated for a moment, and then, half ashamed of yielding to the man whose dislike of her was fast deepening into contempt, she dashed her pen through the name she had just written, bringing her hand, as she did so, into contact with the lamp upon the table. With a smothered exclamation Paul bent across her and tried to stay its fall, but he was not in time. With a crash it fell forwards breaking the bowl, and a trickling stream of blazing paraffin ran down May's muslin skirt, enveloping her in flame. A piercing shriek from the other end of the room showed that Mrs. Webster realized her daughter's peril, and the rector dashed forward to the rescue; but Paul had already torn his coat from his back, and was holding it closely upon the burning skirt.
"See to the platform! she's safe enough!" he shouted as the rector ran up; and, almost before May realized the extreme danger from which she had been delivered, she was lifted from the platform and laid very gently on the floor.
"What are you putting me on the floor for? I'm not going to faint," she said, with lips that trembled a little. "I'm all right. Don't let mother be frightened."
Paul could not but admire the girl's wonderful self-possession.
"And you are not burned? You are sure you are in no way hurt?"
"Thanks to your marvellous quickness, no," she answered.
But Mrs. Webster, tearful but thankful, was at hand, and Paul felt he could not do better than leave May in her mother's charge.
The rector, meanwhile, with one or two others, was successfully battling with the burning stream of paraffin; and in a few minutes all serious fear of a conflagration was over.
"Now we had better see the ladies to their carriage," he said turning to Paul. But already they had taken their departure. "We can't be too thankful for such a narrow escape. The platform looked all on fire when Mrs. Webster's scream made me turn round. Can you tell me how it happened?"