A cry came up from below.  Windham turned toward Miss Maine, and they looked at one another, but said nothing.  She was very pale and still.  Windham glanced down and around; the fire was already following them up the tower.  He made her come to the other side, where the balcony overhung the ridge of the sloping roof, got over the railing, and helped her to do the same, and to seat herself on the narrow ledge outside, holding on by the bars with her arms behind her.  He let himself down by his hands till within two or three feet of the roof, and dropped safely upon it.  Then he stood up, facing her just below, braced himself with one foot on each side of the ridge, and told her to loosen her hold and let herself fall forward.  She did so, and he caught her in his arms as she fell.

It was a struggle for a minute to keep his balance; and whether in the involuntary stress of the effort, or by an instinctive impulse, conscious or otherwise, he clasped her close for a moment, till her face touched his own.  Then he put her down, and they sat on the ridge near each other, flushed, and short of breath.  Below, on the lawn, a throng of people looked up at them, some motionless, some gesticulating, and some shouting in dumb show, their voices drowned in the fierce roar and crackling that raged beneath the roof and shut in the two above it in a kind of visible privacy.  They were still a while; then Agnes asked:  “Can we do anything more?”

“No,” he answered, “nothing but wait.”

Both saw that men were running for ladders and ropes.  Presently he asked quietly: 

“Why did you come to me?”

She looked up at him for a moment, then answered: 

“I suppose I thought you would know what to do.”

“Thank you,” he said, in a grave, low voice.

After a little the tower blazed out above them, and they moved along the ridge till stopped by a chimney, against which he made her lean.  Then they sat still again.  The flames rose above the eaves on one side, and flared higher and hotter.  Soon they grew scorching, and Agnes said, with quickened breathing: 

“We couldn’t stay here long.”

He looked at her, and the side of her face toward the fire glowed bright red.  He took off his coat, moved close to her, and held it up between their faces and the flames; and they sat together so, breathing audibly, but not speaking, till the head of a ladder rose suddenly above the eaves, and a minute later the head and shoulders of Jeffrey Coleman.  He flung a rope to Windham, who in another minute had let Miss Maine slip down by it to the ladder; then, throwing a noose of it over the chimney, he slid down himself to the eaves, and so to the ground.

[Illustration:  “AGNES SAID, WITH QUICKENED BREATHING, ’WE COULDN’T STAY HERE LONG.’”]

Miss Maine stood waiting for him, pale and trembling now, but said nothing.  Mary Mandison was with her; she had made no scene, and made none now.