He approached it from the rear. The wind was in his face. It was so violent that he kept his head down, and his eyes fixed upon a few yards of the way before him.
What was that? Surely the night had grown lighter? Was the dawn breaking? That was impossible—it was little after midnight. But the hedges were plainly seen now, and before they had been blurred into the general blackness. The road was lighter. There was no doubt of it.
Derwent stopped, and, holding his hat, looked up. In front of him the sky was lurid, and over the roof of the Rectory close to hand were long thin tongues of flame and showers of sparks. There was no doubt about it. The thing he had come to do was already accomplished: the Rectory was in flames, and the fire had started from the very quarter he had planned. The wind was fanning it fiercely, as he had seen that it would.
For a moment he was dazed, standing in the middle of the road, staring at the spurting light dancing behind the Rectory, the house looking black against the illumination beyond. Then he ran, struggling against the wind, towards the fire. The reason of his going he did not stop to analyse. He was impelled. The wind whirled his hat away, but he did not notice it. In two minutes he was standing breathless in front of the Rectory. The flames were licking round De Courcy's bedroom window. He saw at once the cause of it. The lamp had overturned in the library. Probably the wind had burst in the window and blown the lamp over.
For a minute he stood gazing at the scene, and then he was conscious of the arrival of Blakiston and his niece.
"Derwent!" the Squire shouted, "where is De Courcy?"
Derwent turned to him. The question seemed a repetition of the older one, "Where is thy brother?" He looked at the Squire and at Daphne clinging to her uncle's arm, white and terrified.
"He must be in his room," he said. "I left him over an hour ago. He was going up then."
The flames leapt in a rush of demoniac exultation, and Daphne cowered.
"Mr. Derwent, can't you do something, can't you do something?" she cried.