in the county pauper lunatic asylum for devon there was one quiet impassive patient, who was always pointed out to horror-loving visitors, because he had once been a[pg 221] gentleman, and had a strange romance hanging to him still, even in that dreary refuge of the destitute insane. the lady whom he had loved and robbed—all for her own good—had followed him down from london to devonshire; and she and her aunt kept a small school, after some struggling fashion, in the town close by, where many kind-hearted squires of the neighbourhood sent their little girls, while they were still very little, for the sake of charity, and for pity of the sad, sad story. one day a week there was a whole holiday—wednesday it was—for that was visiting day at the county asylum; and then ethel sutherland, dressed in deep mourning, walked round with her aunt to the gloomy gateway at ten o'clock, and sat as long as she was allowed with the faded image of cecil mitford, holding his listless hand clasped hard in her pale white fingers, and looking with sad eager anxious eyes for any gleam of passing recognition in his. alas, the gleam never came (perhaps it was better so), cecil mitford looked always straight before him at the blank whitewashed walls, and saw nothing, heard nothing, thought of nothing, from week's end to week's end.

ethel had forgiven him all; what will not a loving woman forgive? nay, more, had found excuses and palliations for him, which quite glossed over his crime and his folly. he must have been losing his reason long before he ever went to jamaica, she said; for in his right mind he would never have tried to deceive her or himself in the way he had done. did he not fancy he was sent out by the colonial office, when he had really gone without leave or mission? and did he not persuade her to give up her money to him for investment, and after all never invest it? what greater proofs of insanity could you have than those? and then that dreadful fever at spanish town, and the shock of losing his kind entertainer, worn out with nursing him, had quite completed the downfall of his reason. so ethel sutherland, in her[pg 222] pure beautiful woman's soul, went on believing, as steadfastly as ever, in the faith and the goodness of that cecil mitford that had never been. his ideal had faded out before the first touch of disillusioning fact; hers persisted still, in spite of all the rudest assaults that the plainest facts could make upon it. thank heaven for that wonderful idealising power of a good woman, which enables her to walk unsullied through this sordid world, unknowing and unseeing.

at last one night, one terrible windy night in december, ethel sutherland was wakened from her sleep in the quiet little school-house by a fearful glare falling fiercely upon her bedroom window. she jumped up hastily and rushed to the little casement to look out towards the place whence the glare came. one thought alone rose instinctively in her white little mind—could it be at cecil's asylum? oh, horror, yes; the whole building was in flames, and if cecil were taken—even poor mad imbecile cecil—what, what on earth would then be left her?

huddling on a few things hastily, anyhow, ethel rushed out wildly into the street, and ran with incredible speed where all the crowd of the town was running together, towards the blazing asylum. the mob knew her at once, and recognized her sad claim; they made a little lane down the surging mass for her to pass through, till she stood beside the very firemen at the base of the gateway. it was an awful sight—poor mad wretches raving and imploring at the windows, while the firemen plied their hose and brought their escapes to bear as best they were able on one menaced tier after another. but ethel saw or heard nothing, save in one third floor window of the right wing, where cecil mitford stood, no longer speechless and imbecile, but calling loudly for help, and flinging his eager arms wildly about him. the shock had brought him back his reason, for the moment at least: oh, thank god, thank god, he saw her, he saw her![pg 223]

with a sudden wild cry ethel burst from the firemen who tried to hold her back, leaped into the burning building and tore up the blazing stairs, blinded and scorched, but by some miracle not quite suffocated, till she reached the stone landing on the third story. turning along the well-known corridor, now filled with black wreaths of stifling smoke, she reached at last cecil's ward, and flung herself madly, wildly into his circling arms. for a moment they both forgot the awful death that girt them round on every side, and cecil, rising one second superior to himself, cried only "ethel, ethel, ethel, i love you; forgive me!" ethel pressed his hand in hers gently, and answered in an agony of joy, "there is nothing to forgive, cecil; i can die happy now, now that i have once more heard you say you love me, you love me."

hand in hand they turned back towards the blazing staircase, and reached the window at the end where the firemen were now bringing their escape-ladder to bear on the third story. the men below beckoned them to come near and climb out on to the ladder, but just at that moment something behind seemed incomprehensibly to fascinate and delay cecil, so that he would not move a step nearer, though ethel led him on with all her might. she looked back to see what could be the reason, and beheld the floor behind them rent by the flames, and a great gap spreading downward to the treasurer's room. on the tiled floor a few dozen pence and shillings and other coins lay, white with heat, among the glowing rubbish; and the whole mass, glittering like gold in the fierce glare, seemed some fiery cave filled to the brim with fabulous wealth. cecil's eye was riveted upon the yawning gap, and the corners of his mouth twitched horribly as he gazed with intense interest upon the red cinders and white hot coin beneath him. instinctively ethel felt at once that all was lost, and that the old mania was once more upon him. clasping her arm tight round his waist,[pg 224] while the firemen below shouted to her to leave him and come down as she valued her life, she made one desperate effort to drag him by main force to the head of the ladder. but cecil, strong man that he was, threw her weak little arm impetuously away, as he might have thrown a two-year-old baby's, and cried to her in a voice trembling with excitement, "see, see, ethel, at last, at last; there it is, there it is in good earnest. john cann's treasure!"

ethel seized his arm imploringly once more. "this way, darling," she cried, in a voice choked by sobs and half stifled with the smoke. "this way to the ladder."

but cecil broke from her fiercely, with a wild light in his big blue eyes, and shouting aloud, "the treasure, the treasure!" leaped with awful energy into the very centre of the seething fiery abyss. ethel fell, fainting with terror and choked by the flames, on to the burning floor of the third story. the firemen, watching from below, declared next day that that crazy madman must have died stifled before he touched the heap of white hot ruins in the central shell, and the poor lady was insensible or dead with asphyxia full ten minutes before the flames swept past the spot where her lifeless body was lying immovable.