"What matter about a few towels, Mrs. Bussey? There are more important things in the world."
"Important, indeed! It's important enough that we might all have been burnt in our beds!"
"Not at midday, Mrs. Bussey," interposed the doctor. "We do many things in this house that we ought not to do and we leave undone many things that we ought to do, but we haven't yet achieved the distinction of staying in bed till twelve of the clock."
"How would we have got Ben down from that second floor where he lies like a log, if the house had gone?" cried Mrs. Bussey, with a sudden access of fury, as the thought struck her. Then she saw Henry Underwood leaning against the door-post, a sardonic smile on his white face. "You villain, that's what you were trying to do," she screamed. "You were going to burn the house down to catch Ben!"
"If your dish towels weren't so dirty, they wouldn't catch fire all by themselves," he said insolently.
"All by themselves!" the indignant woman exclaimed. "They were set fire to, and that any one can see. It's incenerary, that's what it is, and--"
"Come, scatter," said Leslie quickly. "Mrs. Bussey and I want to clean up this kitchen. You can discuss the philosophy of events elsewhere."
Henry laughed and turned on his heel. The strange man who had stood just behind him and had said nothing through it all, went out with him.
"I wish you'd come into the surgery, Burton," said the doctor. He had been staring steadily at the smouldering pile of towels, still smoking whitely on the floor where Burton had flung them. One might almost have guessed that he wished to avoid the eyes of the little group in the room.
"In a moment. I'll just run up and reassure Ben." And, suiting the action to the word, he ran up the stairs two steps at a time, and put his head in at the half-open door.