He ran along the passage, the roar of that wind-driven fire following him as the draft from his window through his opened door gave a sudden impulse to the flames, and he came to Sheila’s sitting-room.  He knocked, had no answer, and burst in.  He saw instantly that she had gone.  Her father’s picture had been taken, her little books, her sketches, her work-basket, her small yellow vase.  Things were scattered about.  As he stood staring, a billow of black smoke rolled into the room.  He went quickly through the bedroom and the bath, calling “Sheila” in a low, uncertain voice, returned to the sitting-room to find the air already pungent and hot.  There was a paper pinned up on the mantel.  Sheila’s writing marched across it.  Dickie rubbed the smoke from his eyes and read: 

“I am going away from Millings.  And I am not coming back.  Amelia may have the things I have left.  I don’t want them.”

This statement was addressed to no one.

“She has gone to New York,” thought Dickie.  His confused mind became possessed with the immediate purpose of following her.  There was an Eastern train in the late afternoon.  Only he must have money and it was—­most of it—­in his room.  He dashed back.  The passage was ablaze; his room roared like the very heart of a furnace.  It was no use to think of getting in there.  Well, he had something in his pocket, enough to start him.  He plunged, choking, into Sheila’s sitting-room again.  For some reason this flight of hers had brought back his hope.  There was to be a beginning, a fresh start, a chance.

He went over to the chair where Sheila had sat in the comfort, of his arms and he touched the piece of tapestry on its back.  That was his good-bye to Millings.  Then he fastened his collar, smoothed his hair, standing close before Sheila’s mirror, peering and blinking through the smoke, and buttoned his coat painstakingly.  There would be a hat downstairs.  As he turned to go he saw a little brown leather book lying on the floor below the mantel.  He picked it up.  Here was something he could take to Sheila.  With an impulse of tenderness he opened it.  His eyes were caught by a stanza—­

“The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven—­”

There are people, no doubt, who will not be able to believe this truthful bit of Dickie’s history.  The smoke was drifting across him, the roar of the nearing fire was in his ears, he was at a great crisis in his affairs, his heart was hot with wounded love, and his brain hot with whiskey and with hope.  Nevertheless, he did now, under the spell of those printed words, which did not even remotely resemble any words that he had ever read or heard before, forget the smoke, the roar, the love, the hope, and, standing below Sheila’s mirror, he did read “The