When poor Lucy Carne next opened her eyes and came back with a sigh to the horrors and suffering of which she had for a time been mercifully unconscious, her first thought was for her husband.

"Has the boat come in? Did the storm die down?—or did it get worse? Has anyone heard or seen anything of my husband?" She panted feebly. But before they could answer her, she had floated off again into a troubled delirium.

"Oh, the wind! Oh, the awful wind!" she kept on repeating. "Oh, can't anything stop it! It's fanning the flames to fury; it's blowing them towards granny's room. Oh, the noise—I must find her—I must save her— she's so feeble. Oh, granny! Granny!" Her voice would end in a scream, followed by a burst of tears; then she would begin again.

Once or twice she had recovered consciousness, and then had asked for her husband or Mona. "Is she badly hurt?—will she get over it?"

The nurse soothed and comforted her, and did all she could. "She isn't conscious yet, but they think she will be soon. She's got slight concussion, and she has cut herself a bit—but she will do all right if she gets over the shock. They are keeping her very quiet; it is the only way. You must try not to scream and call out, dear. For if she began to come round and heard you, it might be very, very serious for her."

After that Lucy lay trying hard to keep fast hold of her senses. "Don't let me scream!" she pleaded. "Put something over my head if I begin. I can keep myself quiet as long as I have my senses—but when they drift away—I—don't know what I do. I didn't know I made a noise. Oh—h—h!" as some slight movement racked her with pain.

"Poor dear," said Nurse. "I expect you're feeling your bruises now, and your leg."

"I seem to be one big lump of pain," sighed poor Lucy. "But I don't mind if only Mona pulls through, and Peter is safe. Oh, my poor husband—what a home-coming!"

"Now try not to dwell on it. You'll only get yourself worse, and for his sake, poor man, you ought to try and get well as fast as you can. There, look at those flowers Patty Row has brought you. Aren't they sweet!"

"Oh, my!" Lucy drew in deep breaths of their fragrance. "Stocks, and sweet-brier—oh, how lovely! They'll help to take away the—smell of the burning." Then her mind seemed to float away again, but not this time through a raging furnace, but through sweet-scented gardens, and sunlight, and soft pure air.

When she came back to the hospital ward again, Nurse smiled at her with eyes full of pleasure. "I've good news for you," she said, bending low, so that her words might quite reach the poor dazed brain. "Your husband is safe!"

"Oh, thank God! Thank God!" Her eyes swam in tears of joy. "Does—he know?" she asked a moment later, her face full of anxiety. The thought of his sad home-coming was anguish to her.

Nurse nodded. "Yes, dear, he knows. The Vicar went to Baymouth by the first train and brought him back. He did not want him to have the news blurted out to him without any preparation."

"How very kind! How is he? Peter, I mean. Is he feeling it very badly? Oh, I wish I could be there to help him, to comfort him. He'll be so lonely—and there will be so much to do."

"My dear, he won't want for help. Everyone is ready and anxious to do what they can. Of course, he is upset. He wouldn't be the man he is if he wasn't. It is all a terrible shock to him! But it might have been so much worse. He is so thankful that you and Mona are safe. He doesn't give a single thought to himself."

"He never does," said Lucy, half-smiling, half-weeping. "That's why he needs me to take thought of him. When may I see him, Nurse?"

"That's what he is asking. If you keep very quiet now, and have a nice sleep, perhaps you'll be strong enough for just a peep at him when you wake up."

"I'll lie still, and be very quiet, but I can't promise to sleep." She did sleep, though, in spite of herself, for when next she turned her head to see if the hands of the clock had moved at all, she found her husband sitting beside her, smiling at her.

"Why, however did you get here, dear? I never saw you come—nor heard a sound."

"I reckon I must have growed up out of the floor," said Peter, bending to kiss her. "Well, my girl, this isn't where I expected to see 'ee when I came back—but I'm so thankful to find you at all, I can't think of anything else."

"Oh, my dear, I'm so glad you've come," she cried, clinging to him passionately. "I never thought we should meet again in this world. Oh! Peter—what we've been through! Oh! That night! That awful night!"

He patted her soothingly, holding her hand in his. "I know, I know—but you must try not to dwell on it. If you throw yourself back, I shan't be allowed to come again."

Lucy put a great restraint upon herself. "They've told you:—poor granny is dead?" she whispered, but more calmly.

"Yes—they've told me. I believe I know the worst now. I've one bit of comfort, though, for all of us. I've just seen the doctor, and he says she was dead before the fire reached her. She must have died almost as soon as she lay down."

Then Lucy broke down and wept from sheer relief. "Oh, thank God," she said, fervently, "for taking her to Himself, and sparing her the horrors of that awful night. Thank Him, too, for Mona's sake. The thought that granny perished in the fire because no one reached her in time would have been the worst of all the thoughts weighing on her mind. She will be spared that now."

At that moment, though, Mona was troubled by no thoughts at all. She lay in her bed in the ward just as they had placed her there hours before, absolutely unconscious. If it had not been for the faint beating of her heart she might have been taken for dead. Doctors came and looked at her and went away again, the day nurses went off duty, and the night nurses came on and went off again, but still she showed no sign of life. With her head and her arms swathed in bandages, she lay with her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted. It was not until the following day, the day Granny Barnes was laid to rest in the little churchyard on the hill, that she opened her eyes on this world once more, and glanced about her, dazed and bewildered.

"Where?" she began. But before she had finished her sentence, her eyes closed.

This time, though, it was not unconsciousness, but sleep that she drifted off into, and it was not until afternoon that she opened her eyes once more.

"Where am I?" She completed her question this time. Then, at the sight of a nurse in uniform, a look of alarm crept into her eyes.

"Where are you, dear? Why, here in hospital, being taken care of, and your mother is here, too."

"Mother."

"Yes, and we are looking after you so well! You are both better already."

The cheerful voice and smile, the kindly face, drove all Mona's fears away at once, and for ever. But, as memory returned, other fears took their place.

"Is—mother—hurt?"

"Yes—but, oh, not nearly as badly as she might have been. She will be well again soon. You shall go into the ward with her when you are a little better. You must keep very quiet now, and not talk."

"But—granny—and father?" faltered Mona. "I must know—I can't rest— till—I do."

For a moment the Nurse hesitated. It was very difficult to know what to do for the best. "She will only fret and worry if I don't tell her, and imagine things worse than they are," she thought to herself.

"Your father is home, and safe and well. You shall see him soon. Your poor granny is safe, too, dear, and well. So well, she will never suffer any more."

"They—let her—die——"

"No one let her die, dear. She had died in her sleep before the fire broke out. She was mercifully spared that—and isn't that something to be thankful for, Mona? There, there, don't cry, dear. You mustn't cry, or you will be ill again, and, for your father's and mother's sake, you must try and get well. Your father wants you home to take care of him until your mother can come. Think of him, dear, and how badly he needs you, and try your best to get better. He is longing to come to see you."

Mercifully for Mona, she was too weak to weep much, or even to think, and before very long she had sunk into an exhausted sleep. Mercifully, too, perhaps, in the horror of her awakening, that terrible night, and the distracting hours that followed, it never entered her head that it was she who had brought about the disaster. It was not till later that that dreadful truth came home to her, to be repented of through years of bitter regret.

The next day her father came to see her, and a few days after that she was carried into the adjoining ward and put into the bed next to her mother.

That was a great step forward. For the first time a ray of sunshine penetrated the heavy cloud of sorrow which had overshadowed them all.

"Keep them both as cheerful as possible," the doctor had said, "and don't let them dwell on the tragedy if you can help it.&............