CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FIRE.
"Why, Philip," said the Colonel, "I didn't know that you'd been dancing. You've been over-exerting yourself. You look tremendously hot, and very much out of breath."
"Young fellahs will dance, you know, Colonel," said the General with the ladders of clasps—"young fellahs will; I envy them!"
"Where is Edith—your daughter—little Edith?" Philip asked, with a scared and anxious face.
"In bed, of course, at this time of night. You don't want to dance with her, a small child like her?" Then fixing his eyes on Philip Stanburne's face, the Colonel exclaimed, grasping his arm so strongly as to cause pain. "Something is wrong, by Jove! out with it, out with it!"
"Where's Edith's room? the house is on fire!"
John Stanburne said nothing, but turned at once with swift steps towards the house. Philip followed him closely: they entered by the great doorway under the porch, and passed rapidly across the hall. It was quiet and empty, lighted by a few lamps suspended from the ceiling by long crimson cords—the portraits of the old fox-hunting Stanburnes looking down with their usual healthy self-possession. The door from the hall to the staircase was closed: when the Colonel opened it, a smell of burning became for the first time perceptible. He took four steps at a time. Edith's rooms were nearly at the top of the house. The nurseries had been up there traditionally, because that situation kept noisy children well out of the way of guests.