“There is a bad fire not very far from here, my lady,” answered Dinah quietly.  “My lord has gone to see if it be like to spread, that he may take such steps as are needful.  Be not anxious; we are safe beneath his care.  He will let no hurt come nigh us before he is back to tell us what we shall do.”

A tranquil smile lighted the lady’s face at these words.  She was in that state of weakness when the mind is not easily ruffled, and Dinah’s calm face and steady voice were very tranquillizing.

“Ah yes, my good lord will not let hurt come nigh us.  We will await his good pleasure.  I trust no poor creatures are in peril?  There will be many to help them I trow?”

“Yes, my lady.  I have not heard of lives lost; and many say that it is good for some of the old houses to burn, that they may build better ones little by little.  Now take this cordial, and sleep once more.  I will awaken you when my lord returns.”

The lady obeyed, and soon slept again, her pulse stronger and firmer and her mind at rest.

But Dinah was growing very uneasy.  Far though she was above the street, she heard shouts and cries—­muffled and distant truly, but very apparent to her strained faculties—­all indicative of alarm and the presence of peril.  She dared not leave her post at the bedside, but the air was becoming so thick with smoke that the patient coughed from time to time, and the nurse was not certain how much longer it would be possible to breathe in it.  She was certain, too, that the place was becoming hot, increasingly hot, each minute.

Oh, where was Lord Desborough? why did he not come?  At last she stole from the room and into the adjoining chamber, and then indeed an awful sight met her shrinking gaze.

A pillar of lambent flame, which seemed to her to be close at hand, was rising up in the air as though it reached the very heavens.  It swayed slowly this way and that, surrounded by clouds of crimson smoke and a veritable furnace of sparks.  Then, as she watched with awed and fascinated gaze, it suddenly seemed to make a bound towards the tower of St. Paul’s standing up majestic and beautiful against the fiery sky.  It fastened upon it like a living monster greedy of prey.  Tongues of flame seemed to be licking it on all sides, and a mass of fire encircled it.

With a gasp of fear and horror Dinah turned away.

“St. Paul’s on fire!” she exclaimed beneath her breath; “God in His mercy have pity upon us!  Can any one save us now?”

CHAPTER XIX.  JUST IN TIME.