When John reached it he saw at a glance that the old place was doomed—there was so much dry wood in it; the floors and wainscots, and in some of the rooms even the ceilings were all of wood, and it was blazing most fiercely. “How did it happen?” cried John.
“Is there any one inside, sir?” asked a dozen persons at once. “We can find no one. It is too late for rescue if there is.”
Before John could reply his arm was grasped by a woman whose head and face were wrapped in a shawl; and he was horrified to recognise his mother.
“I hate her! I have burnt her to death in her bed! I hate her!” she said, first in a whisper and then in a shriek. John seized her, and he shouted to the people, “There is no one in the house; Miss Miller and her servant are in Yorkshire. Is it too late to save anything? There are some valuables there!”
“We must wait till the engines come,” was the answer. “The house seems to have been set on fire in several places, and paraffin or spirit of some kind must have been used.”
Mrs. Hunter broke into a fiendish laugh. “Yes, I did it,” she said; “and I have burnt her to death. She was there; I heard her breathe. I have burnt her to death in her bed. I hate her! I hate her!”
It was a terrible scene; John dragged his mother away, and one of his men helped him to get her home, raving mad.
He heard the engines rattling to the spot. He would like to have remained, to protect Margaret’s interests, if necessary, but he could not. He was sick with horror and dread, but he knew that he alone would be able to manage the mad woman without violence.
“She will never be sane again,” he said to himself that night. And his foreboding was correct. She never was. Medical opinion pronounced her hopelessly insane, and he was obliged, for her own self-preservation, to allow her to be put under restraint at once, without the delay that would have been extremely dangerous.
Margaret was telegraphed for before the fire was out, and she hurried back to find her home in ruins.