He remembered now why he had come and laughed weakly at his own folly as he caught up the kitten and thrust it inside his waistcoat.
Somehow, hardly knowing what he did, he stumbled to the door.
Smoke was now rising up the stairs; he felt the air heavy and stifling. In a confused way he thought of Delia, of how he had last seen her standing by the library door and what she had said.
As he descended into the smoke and glare he thought that he heard her again, calling after him, shrieking:
“Lord Stair! I love you!”
He imagined that he saw her running up the stairs toward him with her hair flaming behind her and her hands out-thrown; he felt again her fingers on his wrist and gazed into her haunting face, and then it seemed that it was not Delia, but Janet in her night-dress with a ghastly smile on her face and a ghastly smear on her arm; then again it was his wife with a face full of loathing, spurning him bitterly.
With one hand over the black cat, he made his way down to the library door.
The flames had reached it; he looked on an utter ruin; part of the outer wall had fallen and the fire roared and hissed through the black gaps of the masonary louder than the yells of the triumphant mob.
And there between the door and the foot of the stairs lay Delia, face downwards.
He cried out to her hoarsely; the flames were curling round the edge of her dress; he beat them out and dragged her up; there was a mark like a purple stain on her forehead; she had been struck down by some falling wood.