"She has strong reasons for not wishing to be seen and recognized; I wonder what they are?" Claire would soliloquize at such times.
Then she would chide herself for being so curious. But the fits of wondering grew stronger, until she came to feel an attraction that was more than mere curiosity; a sort of proprietorship, as it were, in the strange lady. She began to wish that she might know her, and at last, in a very unexpected manner, the wish was gratified.
Claire had returned from a grand ball, weary and somewhat bored. Disrobing with unusual haste, she sought her couch. She had supposed herself very sleepy, but no sooner was her head upon the pillow, than sleep abandoned her, and she tossed restlessly, and very wide awake.
Finding sleep impossible, and herself growing nervous, Claire at length arose. Throwing on a dressing-gown, she pushed a large chair to the window, and flinging herself in it, drew back the curtain. Glancing across the way, she was startled by a light shining out from the upper windows of the mysterious house. She had looked at that house when quitting her carriage, because to look had become a habit. But there had been no light then; not one glimmer. And now the entire upper floor was brilliantly illuminated.
Claire rubbed her eyes and looked again. Then, with a cry of alarm, she sprang to her feet and rang her bell violently.
From the roof of the house a single flame had shot up, and Claire realized the cause of that strange illumination. The upper floor was in flames!
She turned up the gas and commenced making a hurried toilet. By the time the sleepy servant appeared in answer to her ring, she was wrapping a worsted shawl about her head and shoulders, preparatory to going out.
"Rouse papa and the servants, James!" she commanded, sharply. "Number two hundred is on fire! Go instantly!"
Giving the startled and bewildered James a push in the direction of her father's sleeping-room, she darted down the stairs. She unbolted and unchained the street door, and hurried straight across to number two hundred, where she rang peal after peal.
The tiny flame had grown a great one by this time, and almost simultaneously with her ring at the door, the hoarse fire-alarm bell roared out its warning.