He went over to Daphne.
"Give me something for my face—a handkerchief—anything!" he said, roughly.
She took a silk handkerchief from her bosom. It felt warm to his touch, and he was thrilled with a sudden sense of loss. He strode quickly away from her and wrung it in the fountain sporting merrily in front of the burning house. She followed him.
"Bind it round my mouth and nose," he cried.
She did it silently. Then she noticed his eye.
"You are hurt!" she cried.
"It is nothing. I wish it had come later, that is all. It won't matter much in an hour's time."
She thought of his words after, but then she was too anxious.
"God bless you," she whispered, and he mounted the ladder. The flames curled about him and licked his face and shoulders, but he did not falter. Then he disappeared at the window, and they waited. The Squire had found an old bowl and was throwing water from the fountain upon the ladder, which here and there was beginning to burn. Daphne stood watching the flames spurt and roar, and, with white lips, prayed inaudibly. It was perhaps human that she thought little of Derwent and all of Jack.
The heat beat back the Squire, and he stood looking helplessly at the ladder now crackling in the flames.