The ground-floor of the inn was enveloped in flames.  I took a ladder, and resting it against the sill, I mounted to the window that had been pointed out to me.  On the hospitable soil of France a stranger must not perish for want of a Frenchman to save him.  Like Anthony, with one blow I broke the glass and raised the sash; I found myself in a passage that the fire had not reached.  I sprang towards a door.—­an excited voice said, “Don’t come in.”  I entered, looked around for the young stranger, and, immortal gods! what did I see?  In the charming neglige of a beauty suddenly awakened,—­you are right, it was she.  Yes, my dear fellow, it was Lady Penock—­Lady Penock, who recognised and screamed furiously!  “Madame,” said I, turning away with a sincere and proper feeling of respect, “you are mistaken.  The house is on fire, and if you do not leave it”—­“You! you!” she cried, “have set fire to it, like Lovelace, to carry me off.”  “Madame,” said I, “we have no time to lose.”  The floor smoked under our feet, the rafters cracked over our heads, the flames roared at the door, delay was dangerous; so, in spite of the eternal refrain that sounded like the crying of a bird,—­“Shocking! shocking!” I dragged Lady Penock from behind the bed where she cowered to escape my wild embraces, picked her up as if she were a stick of dry wood, and bearing the precious burden, appeared at the top of the ladder.  Meanwhile the fire raged, the flames and the smoke enveloped us on all sides.  “For pity’s sake, madame,” said I, “don’t scream and kick so.”  My lady screamed all the louder and struggled all the worse.  When half way down the ladder she said, “Young man, go back immediately, I have forgotten something very valuable to me.”  At these words the roof fell in, the walls crumbled away, the ladder shook, the earth opened under my feet, and I felt as if I were falling into the abyss of Taenarus.

I awoke, under an humble roof whose poor owner had received me.

I had a fracture of my shoulder, and three doctors by my side.  I have known many men to die with less.  As for Lady Penock, I learned with satisfaction of her escape, barring a sprained ankle; she had departed indignant at the impertinence of my conduct, and to the people who had charitably suggested to her to instal herself as a gray nun at the bedside of her preserver, she said, coloring angrily, “Oh, I should die if I were to see that young man again.”

Be reassured, France has again atoned for Albion.  My adventure having made some noise, a few days after the fire Providence came into my room and sat beside my bed in the shape of a noble woman named Madame de Braimes.

It appears that M. de Braimes has been, for a year past, prefect of Grenoble; that he knew my father intimately, and my name sufficed to bring these two noble beings to my side.

As soon as I could bear the motion of a carriage, they took me from Voreppe, and I am now writing to you, my dear Edgar, from the hotel of the Prefecture.