“Certainly, I will,” she answered, with a brilliant smile. “I shall be glad to see Rosehill gay once more.”
When the ball was over, in the early hours of the morning, with the earth still wrapped in pitch darkness, and Betty was driving home, a faint moan escaped her lips. It was bad enough to have to meet Fortescue constantly, but to go to Rosehill—— She might, it is true, deceive everybody in the county on a pretense of illness, but she could not deceive Fortescue, the person whom she most wished to deceive. She would go, no matter what it cost her.
The ball at Rosehill was a torturing thing to Betty. By that time, as it is with the wild hearts of youth, she had a settled and burning resentment against Fortescue, which she concealed from the world with pretty smiles and gay words. Fortescue, as he said, could not do things as the county people did, but with well meant generosity he did everything well at his ball so far as money could go. There was a profusion of flowers ordered from Baltimore, along with the conventional supper, totally unlike what the county people had, and a band of music beside which the fiddles of Isaac Minkins and Uncle Cesar and the “lap organ” paled. These novelties pleased everybody except Betty, who walked through the rooms where she had spent nineteen years of her short life, and looked around her with a supercilious smile that infuriated Fortescue.
The ball kept up late. Fortescue was an admirable host, and his guests enjoyed themselves. It was quite five o’clock before the last guest had left, and during the night there had been a fall of snow. The lights were out, and Fortescue, in his bedroom, which had once been Betty’s, was smoking his last cigar, and cursing the treachery of a woman—of Betty Beverley, who had won his brave and honest heart, and then, through sheer unreason and heartlessness, had cast him off. He threw the stump of his cigar savagely into the fire, and, going to the window which looked toward Holly Lodge, put it up to inhale the cold, clear air. The blackness and darkness had given way to a pale gray, which preceded the dawn, and by the ghostly half-light, he saw from the roof of Holly Lodge a great cloud of black smoke ascend, and little tongues of flame leaping wickedly.
CHAPTER XVII
THE HAND OF DESTINY
When Fortescue saw the thin cloud of smoke curling upward from the roof of Holly Lodge, he sprang up, and, still in his evening clothes and dancing pumps, ran downstairs, ringing bells and shouting aloud as he ran. The servants flocked out half-dressed, and Fortescue, calling to them to follow him and bring buckets with them, sped across the open field to Holly Lodge. Quiet and still was the house in the dawn of the wintry morning, and apparently asleep. The burning roof had not yet awakened the household, as the smoke and flames were borne upward. Fortescue hammered at the little front door, and, as the flames began to crackle, put his shoulder to the door and burst it in by main force. The Colonel, in his dressing-gown and slippers, was just coming out of his bedroom on the first floor, and at that minute Kettle, struggling into his trousers, rushed into the hall, followed by Aunt Tulip and Uncle Cesar in very sketchy toilettes, Kettle shouting:
“The house is afire, an’ Miss Betty, she upsty’ars!”
Fortescue ran up the narrow stair, two steps at a time. As he reached the landing, Betty opened her door. She was dressed as when she left the ball; even the wreath of ivy leaves on her rich hair was undisturbed. It was not necessary to tell her what was the matter. The shouts and cries below and the roaring and crackling of the flames were enough. Fortescue seized her cloak off a chair and threw it around her, then they both fled downstairs. The roof over the little kitchen wing was burning furiously as the heat melted the snow, but a white mantle lay heavily upon the other part of the roof, and it seemed possible to save the house. By that time the servants from Rosehill had come running, and Fortescue, throwing off his coat, climbed upon the roof and organized a bucket brigade. It was hard work to save the little house, but, by the blessing of the snow and every possible device, it seemed as if the fire could be confined to the roof. It no longer raged and roared, but smouldered. On the lawn, Betty and the Colonel and Aunt Tulip, shivering in spite of being well wrapped up, watched the fight made against the fire, and led by Fortescue. Suddenly a cry went up: where was Kettle? Betty ran around the house, calling at the top of her voice: