“Go and look from the windows,” she said a few minutes later, when the two had sat in silent prayer and meditation for that brief interval.  “Go see what is happening in the street below.  I marvel that I hear so little stir of voices.  But the walls are thick, and we are high up.  Go and see what is passing below, and bring me word again.”

Dinah was not loth to obey this behest, being terribly anxious to know what was happening around them.  Neither by word nor by sign would she add to the anxieties of Lady Desborough, knowing how much might depend upon her calmness if the chance of rescue offered itself; but she herself began to entertain grave fears for the safety of this house, wedged in, as it appeared to her to be, between masses of blazing buildings.

Running up to the top attics of the house, which commanded views almost every way, the sight which greeted her eyes was indeed appalling.  The whole mass of St. Paul’s grand edifice was alight, and the flames were rushing up the walls like fiery serpents whilst the dull roar of the conflagration was like the booming of the breakers on an iron-bound coast.  Grand and terrible was the sight presented by that vast sea of flame, which extended eastward as far as the eyes could see.  It was more brilliantly light now, in the middle of the night, than in the brightest summer noontide, although the blood-red glare was terrible in its intensity, and brought to Dinah’s spirit, with a shudder of horror, a vision of the bottomless pit with its eternal fires.

But without pausing to linger to watch the awful grandeur of the burning cathedral, she hastily passed from attic to attic to see how matters were going in other quarters, and she soon discovered, to her dismay and anxiety, that the flames had crept around the little wedge-like block of buildings in which this mansion stood, and that they were literally ringed round by fire.  By some caprice, or perhaps owing to its solidity of structure, this small three-cornered block, containing about three good houses, had not yet ignited; but the hungry flames were creeping on apace, and, as it seemed to Dinah, from all sides.  As she took in this fact, it seemed to her that help could never reach them now, and that all they could do was to strive to meet death with as calm and bold a spirit as they could, commending their souls to God, and trusting that He would raise up their bodies at the last day, even though they might be consumed to ashes in the midst of this burning fire.

What was that noise?  Surely a shout from below.  Dinah started, and fled hastily down the staircase.  In another moment she heard more plainly.

“Sweet heart, sweet heart, where art thou—­oh where art thou?”

It was Lord Desborough’s voice; she recognized it with a thrill of gladness.  But there was another voice mingling with it which she also knew, and she heard her own name called with equal urgency.

“Dinah!  Mistress Dinah!  Ah, pray God we have not come too late!  Dinah, we are here to save you both!  Show yourself, if you be still there.  Pray Heaven they have not rushed forth in their fears and perished in the flames!”