These scenes have been often described before: it is of no use to detail another here. A household aroused in the depth of the night; terrified women and children crying and running: flames mounting, smoke suffocating. They all escaped with life, taking refuge at the dwelling of a neighbour; but the house and its contents were burnt to the ground.
"My Dear Edina,
"I never began a letter like this in all my life: it will have nothing in it but ill news and misery. Whether I am doing wrong in writing to you, I hardly know. My mother would not write. She feels a delicacy in disclosing our calamities to you, after your generous kindness in providing us with a home; and she must be ashamed to tell you about me. The home is lost, Edina, and I am the cause of it.
"I am too wretched to go into details: and, if I did, you might not have patience to read them; so I will tell the story in as few words as I can. We—I, Alice, and the Earles: you may remember them as living in the low, square house, near the church—were going to act a play, 'She Stoops to Conquer.' I sat up last Wednesday night to study my part, dropped asleep, and somehow the candle set light to some stage dresses that were lying ready in my chamber. When I woke up, the room was in flames. None of us are hurt; but the house is burnt down; and everything that was in it.
"This is not all. I hate to make the next confession to you more than I hated this one. The insurance on the furniture had not been effected. I had put it off and off; though my mother urged me more than once to go and do it.
"You have spoken sometimes, Edina, of the necessity of acting rightly, so that we may enjoy a peaceful conscience. If you only knew what mine is now, and the torment of remorse I endure, even you might feel a passing shade of pity for me. There are moments when the weight seems more than I can bear.
"We have taken a small, cheap lodging near; number five, in the next street; and what the future is to be I cannot tell. It of course falls to my lot now to keep them, as it is through me they have lost their home, and I shall try and do it. Life will be no play-day with me now.
"I thought it my duty to tell you this, Edina. Whilst holding back from the task, I have yet said to myself that you would reproach me if I did not. And you will not mistake the motive, since you are aware that I know you parted with every shilling you had, to provide us with the last home.
"Write a few words of consolation to my mother; no one can do it as you can; and don't spare me to her.
"Your unhappy cousin,