He strode out of the room, and she looked after him coldly.
"It is as well," she said to herself. "Now he understands that there is no more to be got out of me, I hope I shall never lay eyes upon him again."
"Well," said Nicholas, entering directly afterward, "what have you said to him? He dashed out of the yard, looking as black as a thunder-cloud."
"I told him that he had disgraced the family and I should never more acknowledge him as a brother."
"I'm glad you sent him off with a flea in his ear. I don't want to see him around here again."
"I don't think we shall."
There was one thing Mrs. Kent forgot—her brother's brutal temper and appetite for revenge. Had she thought of this she would, perhaps, have been more cautious about provoking him.
In the middle of the night Mrs. Kent awoke with a strange sense of oppression, the cause of which she did not immediately understand. As soon as she recovered her senses she comprehended the occasion—the crackling flames—and the fearful thought burst upon her:
"The house is on fire!"