‘It looks like a fire,’ she said.

‘It is.  Skene is burning like tinder.’

And as he spoke it seemed that the roof fell in, for suddenly vast flames sprang up, rising high into the still night air; and they saw that the house they had just left was blazing furiously.  It was a magnificent sight from the distant hill on which they stood to watch the fire as it soared and sank, as it shot scarlet tongues along like strange Titanic monsters, as it raged from room to room.  Skene was burning.  It was beyond the reach of human help.  In a little while there would be no trace of all those crimes and all those horrors.  Now it was one mass of flame.  It looked like some primeval furnace, where the gods might work unheard-of miracles.

‘Arthur, what have you done?’ asked Susie, in a tone that was hardly audible.

He did not answer directly.  He put his arm about her shoulder again, so that she was obliged to turn round.

‘Look, the sun is rising.’

In the east, a long ray of light climbed up the sky, and the sun, yellow and round, appeared upon the face of the earth.